A numerically robust approach to steady-state calibration of nonlinear dynamic models is presented. The approach is based on explicit formulation of the constraints on validity of internal model signals by set of inequalities. The constrained optimization with feasible iterates guarantees that the model will never be evaluated with invalid internal signals. This overcomes numerical difficulties often encountered when dealing with highly nonlinear models. Because the approach uses a large number of slack variables, distributed least squares algorithm is proposed. The robustness of this approach is demonstrated on a steady-state calibration of turbocharged diesel engine model starting from grossly inaccurate initial estimates. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.