System identification and control using adaptive particle swarm optimization

This paper presents a methodology for finding optimal system parameters and optimal control parameters using a novel adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO) algorithm. In the proposed APSO, every particle dynamically adjusts inertia weight according to feedback taken from particles’ best memories. The main advantages of the proposed APSO are to achieve faster convergence speed and better solution accuracy with minimum incremental computational burden. In the beginning we attempt to utilize the proposed algorithm to identify the unknown system parameters the structure of which is assumed to be known previously. Next, according to the identified system, PID gains are optimally found by also using the proposed algorithm. Two simulated examples are finally given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The comparison to PSO with linearly decreasing inertia weight (LDW-PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA) exhibits the APSO-based system’s superiority.     

Improved particle swarm algorithm for hydrological parameter optimization

In this paper, a new method named MSSE-PSO (master-slave swarms shuffling evolution algorithm based on particle swarm optimization) is proposed. Firstly, a population of points is sampled randomly from the feasible space, and then partitioned into several sub-swarms (one master swarm and other slave swarms). Each slave swarm independently executes PSO or its variants, including the update of particles’ position and velocity. For the master swarm, the particles enhance themselves based on the social knowledge of master swarm and that of slave swarms. At periodic stage in the evolution, the master swarm and the whole slave swarms are forced to mix, and points are then reassigned to several sub-swarms to ensure the share of information. The process is repeated until a user-defined stopping criterion is reached. The tests of numerical simulation and the case study on hydrological model show that MSSE-PSO remarkably improves the accuracy of calibration, reduces the time of computation and enhances the performance of stability. Therefore, it is an effective and efficient global optimization method.     

Memetic particle swarm optimization

We propose a new Memetic Particle Swarm Optimization scheme that incorporates local search techniques in the standard Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, resulting in an efficient and effective optimization method, which is analyzed theoretically. The proposed algorithm is applied to different unconstrained, constrained, minimax and integer programming problems and the obtained results are compared to that of the global and local variants of Particle Swarm Optimization, justifying the superiority of the memetic approach.     

PID control for chaotic synchronization using particle swarm optimization

In this paper, we attempt to use the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller to achieve the chaos synchronization for delayed discrete chaotic systems. Three PID control gains can be optimally determined by means of using a novel optimization algorithm, called the particle swarm optimization (PSO). The algorithm is motivated from the organism behavior of fish schooling and bird flocking, and involves the social psychology principles in socio-cognition human agents and evolutionary computations. It has a good numerical convergence for solving optimization problem. To show the validity of the PSO-based PID control for chaos synchronization, several cases with different initial populations are considered and some simulation results are shown.     

An analysis of the velocity updating rule of the particle swarm optimization algorithm

The particle swarm optimization algorithm includes three vectors associated with each particle: inertia, personal, and social influence vectors. The personal and social influence vectors are typically multiplied by random diagonal matrices (often referred to as random vectors) resulting in changes in their lengths and directions. This multiplication, in turn, influences the variation of the particles in the swarm. In this paper we examine several issues associated with the multiplication of personal and social influence vectors by such random matrices, these include: (1) Uncontrollable changes in the length and direction of these vectors resulting in delay in convergence or attraction to locations far from quality solutions in some situations (2) Weak direction alternation for the vectors that are aligned closely to coordinate axes resulting in preventing the swarm from further improvement in some situations, and (3) limitation in particle movement to one orthant resulting in premature convergence in some situations. To overcome these issues, we use randomly generated rotation matrices (rather than the random diagonal matrices) in the velocity updating rule of the particle swarm optimizer. This approach makes it possible to control the impact of the random components (i.e. the random matrices) on the direction and length of personal and social influence vectors separately. As a result, all the above mentioned issues are effectively addressed. We propose to use the Euclidean rotation matrices for rotation because it preserves the length of the vectors during rotation, which makes it easier to control the effects of the randomness on the direction and length of vectors. The direction of the Euclidean matrices is generated randomly by a normal distribution. The mean and variance of the distribution are investigated in detail for different algorithms and different numbers of dimensions. Also, an adaptive approach for the variance of the normal distribution is proposed which is independent from the algorithm and the number of dimensions. The method is adjoined to several particle swarm optimization variants. It is tested on 18 standard optimization benchmark functions in 10, 30 and 60 dimensional spaces. Experimental results show that the proposed method can significantly improve the performance of several types of particle swarm optimization algorithms in terms of convergence speed and solution quality.     

A multi-start opposition-based particle swarm optimization algorithm with adaptive velocity for bound constrained global optimization

In this paper we present a multi-start particle swarm optimization algorithm for the global optimization of a function subject to bound constraints. The procedure consists of three main steps. In the initialization phase, an opposition learning strategy is performed to improve the search efficiency. Then a variant of the adaptive velocity based on the differential operator enhances the optimization ability of the particles. Finally, a re-initialization strategy based on two diversity measures for the swarm is act in order to avoid premature convergence and stagnation. The strategy uses the super-opposition paradigm to re-initialize particles in the swarm. The algorithm has been evaluated on a set of 100 global optimization test problems. Comparisons with other global optimization methods show the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Chaos-enhanced accelerated particle swarm optimization

There are more than two dozen variants of particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms in the literature. Recently, a new variant, called accelerated PSO (APSO), shows some extra advantages in convergence for global search. In the present study, we will introduce chaos into the APSO in order to further enhance its global search ability. Firstly, detailed studies are carried out on benchmark problems with twelve different chaotic maps to find out the most efficient one. Then the chaotic APSO (CAPSO) will be compared with some other chaotic PSO algorithms presented in the literature. The performance of the CAPSO algorithm is also validated using three engineering problems. The results show that the CAPSO with an appropriate chaotic map can clearly outperform standard APSO, with very good performance in comparison with other algorithms and in application to a complex problem.     

Balanced fuzzy particle swarm optimization

In the present study an extension of particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm which is in conformity with actual nature is introduced for solving combinatorial optimization problems. Development of this algorithm is essentially based on balanced fuzzy sets theory. The classical fuzzy sets theory cannot distinguish differences between positive and negative information of membership functions, while in the new method both kinds of information “positive and negative” about membership function are equally important. The balanced fuzzy particle swarm optimization algorithm is used for fundamental optimization problem entitled traveling salesman problem (TSP). For convergence inspecting of new algorithm, method was used for TSP problems. Convergence curves were represented fast convergence in restricted and low iterations for balanced fuzzy particle swarm optimization algorithm (BF-PSO) comparison with fuzzy particle swarm optimization algorithm (F-PSO).     

Minimum entropy control of chaos via online particle swarm optimization method

One of the recently developed approaches for control of chaos is the minimum entropy (ME) control technique. In this method an entropy function based on the Shannon definition, is defined for a chaotic system. The control action is designed such that the entropy as a cost function is minimized which results in more regular pattern of motion for the system trajectories. In this paper an online optimization technique using particle swarm optimization (PSO) method is developed to calculate the control action based on ME strategy. The method is examined on some standard chaotic maps with error feedback and delayed feedback forms. Considering the fact that the optimization is online, simulation results show very good effectiveness of the presented technique in controlling chaos.     

Reservoir flood control operation based on chaotic particle swarm optimization algorithm

Reservoir flood control operation is a complex engineering optimization problem with a large number of constraints. In order to solve this problem, a chaotic particle swarm optimization (CPSO) algorithm based on the improved logistic map is presented, which uses the discharge flow process as the decision variables combined with the death penalty function. According to the principle of maximum eliminating flood peak, a novel flood control operation model has been established with the goal of minimum standard deviation of the discharge flow process. At the same time, a piecewise linear interpolation function (PLIF) is applied to deal with the constraints for solving objective function. The performance of the proposed model and method is evaluated on two typical floods of Three Gorges reservoir. In comparison with existing models and other algorithms, the proposed model and algorithm can generate better solutions with the minimal flood peak discharge and the maximal peak-clipping rate for reservoir flood control operation.     

Floating boundary particle swarm optimization algorithm

A new modification to the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is proposed aiming to make the algorithm less sensitive to selection of the initial search domain. To achieve this goal, we release the boundaries of the search domain and enable each boundary to drift independently, guided by the number of collisions with particles involved in the optimization process. The gradual modification of the active search domain range enables us to prevent particles from revisiting less promising regions of the search domain and also to explore the areas located outside the initial search domain. With time, the search domain shrinks around a region holding a global extremum. This helps improve the quality of the final solution obtained. It also makes the algorithm less sensitive to initial choice of the search domain ranges. The effectiveness of the proposed Floating Boundary PSO (FBPSO) is demonstrated using a set of standard test functions. To control the performance of the algorithm, new parameters are introduced. Their optimal values are determined through numerical examples.     

Optimal multiple-objective resource allocation using hybrid particle swarm optimization and adaptive resource bounds technique

The multiple-objective resource allocation problem (MORAP) seeks for an allocation of resource to a number of activities such that a set of objectives are optimized simultaneously and the resource constraints are satisfied. MORAP has many applications, such as resource distribution, project budgeting, software testing, health care resource allocation, etc. This paper addresses the nonlinear MORAP with integer decision variable constraint. To guarantee that all the resource constraints are satisfied, we devise an adaptive-resource-bound technique to construct feasible solutions. The proposed method employs the particle swarm optimization (PSO) paradigm and presents a hybrid execution plan which embeds a hill-climbing heuristic into the PSO for expediting the convergence. To cope with the optimization problem with multiple objectives, we evaluate the candidate solutions based on dominance relationship and a score function. Experimental results manifest that the hybrid PSO derives solution sets which are very close to the exact Pareto sets. The proposed method also outperforms several representatives of the state-of-the-art algorithms on a simulation data set of the MORAP.     

Application of particle swarm optimization in chaos synchronization in noisy environment in presence of unknown parameter uncertainty

In this paper, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is applied to synchronize chaotic systems in presence of parameter uncertainties and measurement noise. Particle swarm optimization is an evolutionary algorithm which is introduced by Kennedy and Eberhart. This algorithm is inspired by birds flocking. Optimization algorithms can be applied to control by defining an appropriate cost function that guarantees stability of system. In presence of environment noise and parameter uncertainty, robustness plays a crucial role in succeed of controller. Since PSO needs only rudimentary information about the system, it can be a suitable algorithm for this case. Simulation results confirm that the proposed controller can handle the uncertainty and environment noise without any extra information about them. A comparison with some earlier works is performed during simulations.     

Enhancing performance of particle swarm optimization through an algorithmic link with genetic algorithms

Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) are emerging as competitive and reliable techniques for several optimization tasks. Juxtapositioning their higher-level and implicit correspondence; it is provocative to query if one optimization algorithm can benefit from another by studying underlying similarities and dissimilarities. This paper establishes a clear and fundamental algorithmic linking between particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and genetic algorithms (GAs). Specifically, we select the task of solving unimodal optimization problems, and demonstrate that key algorithmic features of an effective Generalized Generation Gap based Genetic Algorithm can be introduced into the PSO by leveraging this algorithmic linking while significantly enhance the PSO’s performance. However, the goal of this paper is not to solve unimodal problems, neither is to demonstrate that the modified PSO algorithm resembles a GA, but to highlight the concept of algorithmic linking in an attempt towards designing efficient optimization algorithms. We intend to emphasize that the evolutionary and other optimization researchers should direct more efforts in establishing equivalence between different genetic, evolutionary and other nature-inspired or non-traditional algorithms. In addition to achieving performance gains, such an exercise shall deepen the understanding and scope of various operators from different paradigms in Evolutionary Computation (EC) and other optimization methods.     

The fitness evaluation strategy in particle swarm optimization

The particle swarm optimization (PSO) computational method has recently become popular. However, it has limitations. It may trap into local optima and cause the premature convergence phenomenon, especially for multimodal and high-dimensional problems. In this paper, we focus on investigating the fitness evaluation in terms of a particle’s position. Particularly, we find that the fitness evaluation strategy in the standard PSO has two drawbacks, i.e., “two steps forward and one step back” and “two steps back and one step forward”. In addition, we propose a general fitness evaluation strategy (GFES), by which a particle is evaluated in multiple subspaces and different contexts in order to take diverse paces towards the destination position. As demonstrations of GFES, a series of PSOs with GFES are presented. Experiments are conducted on several benchmark optimization problems. The results show that GFES is effective at handling multimodal and high-dimensional problems.     

Improved particle swarm optimization combined with chaos

As a novel optimization technique, chaos has gained much attention and some applications during the past decade. For a given energy or cost function, by following chaotic ergodic orbits, a chaotic dynamic system may eventually reach the global optimum or its good approximation with high probability. To enhance the performance of particle swarm optimization (PSO), which is an evolutionary computation technique through individual improvement plus population cooperation and competition, hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed by incorporating chaos. Firstly, adaptive inertia weight factor (AIWF) is introduced in PSO to efficiently balance the exploration and exploitation abilities. Secondly, PSO with AIWF and chaos are hybridized to form a chaotic PSO (CPSO), which reasonably combines the population-based evolutionary searching ability of PSO and chaotic searching behavior. Simulation results and comparisons with the standard PSO and several meta-heuristics show that the CPSO can effectively enhance the searching efficiency and greatly improve the searching quality.     

A novel particle swarm optimization algorithm based on particle migration

Inspired by the migratory behavior in the nature, a novel particle swarm optimization algorithm based on particle migration (MPSO) is proposed in this work. In this new algorithm, the population is randomly partitioned into several sub-swarms, each of which is made to evolve based on particle swarm optimization with time varying inertia weight and acceleration coefficients (LPSO-TVAC). At periodic stage in the evolution, some particles migrate from one complex to another to enhance the diversity of the population and avoid premature convergence. It further improves the ability of exploration and exploitation. Simulations for benchmark test functions illustrate that the proposed algorithm possesses better ability to find the global optima than other variants and is an effective global optimization tool.     

An efficient co-swarm particle swarm optimization for non-linear constrained optimization

This paper proposes a new co-swarm PSO (CSHPSO) for constrained optimization problems, which is obtained by hybridizing the recently proposed shrinking hypersphere PSO (SHPSO) with the differential evolution (DE) approach. The total swarm is subdivided into two sub swarms in such a way that the first sub swarms uses SHPSO and second sub swarms uses DE. Experiments are performed on a state-of-the-art problems proposed in IEEE CEC 2006. The results of the CSHPSO is compared with SHPSO and DE in a variety of fashions. A statistical approach is applied to provide the significance of the numerical experiments. In order to further test the efficacy of the proposed CSHPSO, an economic dispatch (ED) problem with valve points effects for 40 generating units is solved. The results of the problem using CSHPSO is compared with SHPSO, DE and the existing solutions in the literature. It is concluded that CSHPSO is able to give the minimal cost for the ED problem in comparison with the other algorithms considered. Hence, CSHPSO is a promising new co-swarm PSO which can be used to solve any real constrained optimization problem.