Chebyshev approximation of the functions of many
variables with the condition
Malachivskyy P. S., Melnychok L. S.
Centre of Mathematical Modeling of Pidstryhach Institute
for Applied Problems of Mechanics and Mathematics
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
Lviv, Ukraine
petro.malachivskyy@gmail.com, levkom@gmail.com
A method of constructing a Chebyshev approximation of the
function of many variables with the exact reproduction of its
value at a given point is proposed. It is based on the sequential
construction of power-average approximations, taking into
account the imposed condition. The power-average
approximation is calculated using an iterative scheme based on
the method of least squares with variable weight function. An
algorithm for calculating the Chebyshev approximation
parameters with a condition for absolute error is described.
Keywords: Chebyshev approximation with condition, functions
of many variables, power-average approximation, least squares
method, variable weight function.
I. FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM
Let a continuous function of n variables f  X  , where
X  x1, x2 , ..., xn  - is a point of n -dimensional real space
R n , on an arbitrary set of points   X j  js1 is given. The
function f  X  should be approximated by a generalized
polynomial
m
Fm a; X    a  X  ,
i 0
i i (1)
 i  X  , i  0, m – is a system of linearly independent
functions, a i , i  0, m – are unknown parameters:
ai im0  A , A  R m1 . The Chebyshev approximation of a
function f  X  by expression (1) with the condition is that at
one of the points of the set  , denoted by U , the expression
 
Fm a;U reproduces the value of the function f U 
f U   Fm a;U   v , (2)
and the biggest approximation error
a   max f  X   Fm a; X  (3)
X 
is the smallest possible on the set of parameters A.
Pizyur Y. V.
National University “Lviv Polytechnic”,
Lviv, Ukraine
yaropolk.v.piziur@lpnu.ua
The class of expressions Fm a; x  satisfying condition (2)
is characterized by some subset of parameters ai im0  A
A  R  . If there is a point a
m 1
 A at which the exact lower
*
bound of the largest error of approximation is reached
 
 a *  inf a  ,
A
(4)
then the expression Fm a; x  is a Chebyshev approximation
of a function f  X  on a set of points  , that reproduces
the given value of the function at a point U . This
approximation is called the Chebyshev approximation with
the condition [1 – 3].
The need to approximate a function with a condition arises
when, from the technical requirements, it is necessary for the
approximation expression to reproduce a given value at a
certain point [3 – 6]. For example, when designing measuring
devices, a specific value of the sensor output must correspond
to a specific measured value [3, 7, 8].
The properties of the Chebyshev approximation with the
condition for the functions of one variable are described in
[1, 3, 9 – 11]. The characteristic property of the Chebyshev
approximation with the condition is first established in [1],
where it is substantiated that at the alternation points adjacent
to the point of the condition, the sign of the deviation error
must coincide. In [1, 3] the necessary and sufficient conditions
for the existence of a Chebyshev approximation with the
condition of expressions satisfying the Haar condition are
established, and in [10, 11] the characteristic properties are
described and algorithms are proposed to determine the
parameters of a Chebyshev approximation with the condition
of some non-linear expressions. A method of constructing the
Chebyshev approximation of functions of many variables with
the condition as a limit approximation in the norm of space
L p at p   is proposed [12, – 14]. This method consists
of sequentially constructing power-average approximations
with the reproduction of the value of the function at a given
point. In the discrete case, we use the space norm E p
1  p   
 
1 p approximation of function f  X  by expression (6) by least
p
 E p 

 X 

f  X   Rm a; X  

 ,
(5) squares method with weight function  k  X  on the set of
points  u   \ U .
to estimate the error of the power-average approximation, The least squares method (7) with the weight function (8)
where. The limit value of the norm  E p at p   , provides a consistent obtaining of the power-average
approximations Fm,r a; X  , r  0, 1, ... of function f  X  in
~
similarly to the norm of the space L p at p   , corresponds
to the norm in the space of continuous functions  [15]. space E r  2 . According to (8) the values of the weight
C
function at each iteration (7) vary in proportion to the error of
II. THE METHOD OF DETERMINING THE PARAMETERS OF THE the approximation of the function f  X  by the expression
Fm,r a; X 
CHEBYSHEV APPROXIMATION OF THE FUNCTIONS OF MANY ~
VARIABLES WITH THE CONDITION
 r  X   f  X   Fm,r a; X  ,
~
(9)
The construction of the Chebyshev approximation of the
tabularly given functions of many variables with the condition that was obtained in the previous iteration. Since the point
is based on the idea of sequentially calculating the power- X  X   u  with the largest deviation (9) corresponds to the
average approximation in space E p at p  2, 3, 4, . . . largest proportional increase in the value of the weight
[12, 13]. Suppose that for a function f  X  , given by the table function (8), the use of such a refinement of the values of the
on the set of points  , there is a Chebyshev approximation of weight function for iterations (7) causes a consistent decrease
the expression Fm a; X  with the reproduction of the given in the error of approximation of the function f  X  by the set
value at the point U . To construct such a Chebyshev of points  u :
approximation, we use the method of consecutive power- ˆ 0  ˆ1  . . .  ˆ r , (10)
average approximations by the expression where
ˆ r  max  r  X  . (11)
m  m   0 X  X u
Fm a; X    a  X    v   a  U  
~
. (6)
i 1
i i
i 1
i i
0 U  Therefore, similar to the method described in [12, 13], the
use of a weighting function (8), whose values at each iteration
The expression Fm a; X  is derived from expression (1) with
~ (7) change in proportion to the error module (9) of the
respect to condition (2). This removes the parameter a0 from reproduction of the function values f  X  , causes a consistent
expression (1). It is assumed that  0 U  . In practical
decrease in the error of its reproduction (11) by the
approximation Fm,r a; X  . This substantiates the convergence
~
implementation of this method, in order to ensure the stability
of the computational process, it is advisable to remove the of the iterations (7).
 
parameter a і i  0, m , for which the value of the basis The completion of iterations (7) can be controlled by
achieving some predetermined accuracy 
function  i U  at the point U takes the largest absolute
value. ˆ r 1  ˆ r  ˆ r . (12)
The construction of a Chebyshev approximation of a
function f  X  consists in the sequential computation of the For the obtained approximation, we make further
adjustments using the additive [9] correction
power-average approximations f  X  by the expression
a0   max   min  2 ,
Fm a; X  for p  2, 3, 4, . . . . To calculate the parameter
~ (13)
where
values of the power-average approximations, we use an
iterative scheme based on the least squares method  
 max  max f  X   Fm,r a; X  , and
X u
~

  X  f X   F
r
~
m a; X 
2
a
 min ,
A X u

 min  min f  X   Fm,r a; X  .
~
 (14)
X u

r  0, ..., p  2 , p  2, 3, 4, . . . (7) As a result, the adjusted approximation of the continuous

function f  X  given on the set of points X   with a fixed
with sequential refinement of the values of the weight function value at the point U by expression (6) will be
r
Fm a; X   Fm,r a; X   a0 .
~ ~
0 X   1 , r X     X  ,
i 1
i r  1, ..., p  2 , (8) (15)

It should be noted that the approximation (15) reduces the

where  k  X   f  X   Fm,k 1 a; X  , k  1, r , Fm,k a; X  –
~ ~
absolute error of the approximation by the magnitude a0 , but
at the same time causes the error of the same magnitude a0 obtained by the Remez iteration scheme with refinement of
when reproducing the value of the function at the point U . alternative points according to the Vallee-Poussin algorithm
[3] provides an error of approximation – 0.09289. The excess
The values of the Chebyshev approximation parameters a i
i  1, m by the generalized polynomial (1) are equal to the
of the polynomial approximation error (17) compared to the
Chebyshev approximation error obtained by the Remez
values of the corresponding parameters a i  1, m of i
scheme (18) is equal to 0.00137, which is 1.475% of the
Chebyshev approximation error obtained according to the
approximation Fm a; X  , defined by formula (15), and the
~
Remez scheme.
parameter value a0 is calculated by the formula The curve of error of approximation of function y  x  by
polynomial (17) is presented in Fig. 1.
 m 
a0   v 


 a  U   a
i 1
i i
  0 U  .
0

(16)

Therefore, the sequential refinement of the values of the

weight function (8) taking into account the errors of the
reproduction of the values of the function f  X  according to
the results of all previous approximations by the method of
least squares (7), ensures the convergence of the iterative
scheme (7)-(8) when calculating the averaged approximations
with a given value at a point U accordingly provides a
convergence of the method of calculation of the Chebyshev
approximation with the reproduction of the value of the
function f  X  at a point U  f U   v  . It is possible to
achieve the required accuracy in calculating the parameters of
the Chebyshev approximation of the function f  X  with the
condition by setting the value  in (12).
The results of the calculation of the Chebyshev
approximation parameters with the condition for the test
examples confirm the convergence of the iterative process (7)
with the weighting functions (8) and (17) when approximating
the functions of one, two and three variables. In particular,
when deciding test cases for functions of two variables given
on the set from the 121 points, the coincidence of 2 – 3
significant digits in the approximation error at   0.003 was
achieved in 6 - 20 iterations (7).
Example 1. Find a Chebyshev approximation of a function
y x   0.1 + 2x + 3x 3
given at points x i , i  0, 20 , where
xi  0.1i , by a second degree polynomial with a given value
at a point U  x2  0.2 .
Using the proposed method at   0.003 for 11 iterations
(7) a polynomial
P2 a; x   0.4557847182 x 2 + 1.48803222 x + 0.40747919 (17)
was obtained for the function y  x  . Taking into account the
corrective amendment a0  0.0005614165 it provides an
absolute error of approximation – 0.094260809. Chebyshev
approximation of function y  x  by a second degree
polynomial with a given value at a point U  x 2  0.2
Fig. 1. The curve of error of approximation of function
y  x  by a polynomial (17).
The given curve of the approximation error of the function
y  x  by the polynomial (17) corresponds to the characteristic
property of the Chebyshev approximation with interpolation at
one point [1, 3] – it has three extreme points at which it
reaches the largest deviation by the modulus, the values of the
modules of these deviations coincide (within a given
accuracy) and the sign of deviation at these points alternates
except for points adjacent to the point of condition
U  x 2  0.2 .
Example 2. Find the Chebyshev approximation of a
 
function zx, y   x 2  y 2 given at points xi , y j , i  0, 10 ,
j  0, 10 , where xi  0.1i , y j  0.1 j , by a second-degree
polynomial with respect to variables x and y with a given
value at a point 0.5, 0 .5 , that is, by reproducing the value –
z0.5, 0.5  0.5 .
Since the function z x, y  and the point of the condition
0.5, 0 .5 are symmetric about the arguments x and y , then
its approximation to the second-degree polynomial must also
be symmetric, that is, to approximate the function z x, y  it is
advisable to use the polynomial of the form
 
P2,2 x, y   a  bx  y   c x 2  y 2  dxy . (19)
Using the proposed method at   0.003 for 17 iterations
(7)-(8) for a function z x, y  we obtain an approximate
polynomial

P 2 a; x   0.409117888258291  P2, 2 a; x, y   0.6664637974x + y   0.6699855185 xy +

 1.48206220221688 x  0.458702739393668 x 2
, (18)
 
 0.3340609033 y 2 + x 2 + 0.04136408715
. (20)
 The polynomial (20) taking into account the adjusting
amendment a0  0.00025517535 provides an absolute error
of approximation of the function z x, y  – 0.0418887884.
The surface of the error of approximation of the function
z x, y  by a polynomial (20) is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. The surface of the error of approximation of the
function z x, y  by a polynomial (20) with absolute error.
Example 3. Find a Chebyshev approximation of a function
 
z3 x, y, t   e  xyt given at points xi , y j , tr , i  0, 10 ,
j  0, 10 , r  0, 10 , where xi  0.1i , y j  0.1 j , t r  0.1r by
a polynomial of the first degree for each of the variables x ,
y and t , and a given value at a point 0, 0, 0 , that is, by
reproducing the value – z3 0, 0, 0   1 .
Using the proposed method (7)-(8) at   0.003 an
approximating polynomial
P1 a; x, y, t   0.9983521186  0.030584426 x  0.030584376 y 
 0.03058428869 t  0.02446439166 xy  (21)
 0.0244642936 xt  0.02446423364 yt  0.652122295 xyt .
was obtained for 22 iterations. It provides an absolute error
0.04 of approximation of the function z 3 x, y, t  with the
adjusting amendment a0  0.00164788145 .
CONCLUSION
The parameters of the Chebyshev approximation of the
functions of many variables with the condition with the
smallest absolute error are calculated according to the iteration
scheme (7) - (8). The method consists of sequential
construction of power-average approximations by an
expression that ensures that the given condition is fulfilled.
The power-average approximations are calculated using an
iterative scheme based on the least-squares method (7). It is
possible to calculate the parameters of the Chebyshev
approximation of the function of many variables with the
condition with the required accuracy. Test examples confirm
the sufficiently fast convergence of the proposed method when
calculating the Chebyshev approximation parameters.
According to a similar scheme it is possible to realize the
calculation of the Chebyshev approximation parameters with
interpolation at a given set of points.
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