Inner and Outer Approximations of Star-Convex Semialgebraic Sets

We consider the problem of approximating a semialgebraic set with a sublevel-set of a polynomial function. In this setting, it is standard to seek a minimum volume outer approximation and/or maximum volume inner approximation. As there is no known relationship between the coefficients of an arbitrary polynomial and the volume of its sublevel sets, previous works have proposed heuristics based on the determinant and trace objectives commonly used in ellipsoidal fitting. For the case of star-convex semialgebraic sets, we propose a novel objective which yields both an outer and an inner approximation while minimizing the ratio of their respective volumes. This objective is scale-invariant and easily interpreted. Numerical examples are given which show that the approximations obtained are often tighter than those returned by existing heuristics. We also provide methods for establishing the star-convexity of a semialgebraic set by finding inner and outer approximations of its kernel.