A Hybrid Symbiosis Organisms Search algorithm and its application to real world problems

In this paper, a new hybrid algorithm, Hybrid Symbiosis Organisms Search (HSOS) has been proposed by combining Symbiosis Organisms Search (SOS) algorithm with Simple Quadratic Interpolation (SQI). The proposed algorithm provides more efficient behavior when dealing with real-world and large scale problems. To verify the performance of this suggested algorithm, 13 (Thirteen) well known benchmark functions, CEC2005 and CEC2010 special session on real-parameter optimization are being considered. The results obtained by the proposed method are compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms and it was observed that the suggested approach provides an effective and efficient solution in regards to the quality of the final result as well as the convergence rate. Moreover, the effect of the common controlling parameters of the algorithm, viz. population size, number of fitness evaluations (number of generations) of the algorithm are also being investigated by considering different population sizes and the number of fitness evaluations (number of generations). Finally, the method endorsed in this paper has been applied to two real life problems and it was inferred that the output of the proposed algorithm is satisfactory.     

Two-stage based ensemble optimization framework for large-scale global optimization

Large-scale global optimization (LSGO) is a very important and challenging task in optimization domain, which is embedded in many scientific and engineering applications. In order to strengthen both effectiveness and efficiency of LSGO algorithm, this paper designs a two-stage based ensemble optimization evolutionary algorithm (EOEA) framework, which serially implements two sub-optimizers. These two sub-optimizers mainly focus on exploration and exploitation separately. The EOEA framework can be easily generated, flexibly altered and modified, according to different implementation conditions. In order to analyze the effects of EOEA’s components, we compare its performance on diverse kinds of problems with its two sub-optimizers and three variants. To show its superiorities over the previous LSGO algorithms, we compare its performance with six classical LSGO algorithms on the LSGO test functions of IEEE Congress of Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2008). The performance of EOEA is further evaluated by experimental comparison with four state-of-the-art LSGO algorithms on the test functions of CEC 2010 LSGO competition. To benchmark the practical applicability of EOEA, we adopt EOEA to the parameter calibration problem of water pipeline system. Based on the experimental results on diverse scales of systems, EOEA performs steadily and robustly.     

Novel biogeography-based optimization algorithm with hybrid migration and global-best Gaussian mutation

The Biogeography-Based Optimization algorithm and its variants have been used widely for optimization problems. To get better performance, a novel Biogeography-Based Optimization algorithm with Hybrid migration and global-best Gaussian mutation is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a linearly dynamic random heuristic crossover strategy and an exponentially dynamic random differential mutation one are presented to form a hybrid migration operator, and the former is used to get stronger local search ability and the latter strengthen the global search ability. Secondly, a new global-best Gaussian mutation operator is put forward to balance exploration and exploitation better. Finally, a random opposition learning strategy is merged to avoid getting stuck in local optima. The experiments on the classical benchmark functions and the complexity functions from CEC-2013 and CEC-2017 test sets, and the Wilcoxon, Bonferroni-Holm and Friedman statistical tests are used to evaluate our algorithm. The results show that our algorithm obtains better performance and faster running speed compared with quite a few state-of-the-art competitive algorithms. In addition, experimental results on Minimum Spanning Tree and K-means clustering optimization show that our algorithm can cope with these two problems better than the comparison algorithms.     

Multi-strategy boosted mutative whale-inspired optimization approaches

This paper presents an improved Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) for global optimization. WOA is a recently introduced meta-heuristic algorithm mimicking the hunting behavior of humpback whales. Owing to its simplicity in exploratory and exploitative operators and the satisfactory efficacy, this algorithm has found its place among the well-established population-based approach utilized in many engineering and science areas. However, this method is easy to fall into local optimum when dealing with some optimization cases. In order to further enhance its exploratory and exploitative performance, three strategies are incorporated into the original method to keep a better balance between exploitation and exploration tendencies. First, the chaotic initialization phase is introduced into the optimizer to initiate the swarm of chaos-triggered whales. Then, Gaussian mutation is employed to intensify the diversity level of the evolving population. At last, a chaotic local search with a ‘shrinking’ strategy is used to enhance the exploitative leanings of the basic optimizer. In order to verify the effectiveness of the improved WOA, it is compared to four meta-heuristic and state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms on representative benchmark functions. Trial results and simulations reveal that not only the proposed improved WOA is significantly better than those basic algorithms including original WOA but also it is superior to compared state-of-the-art approaches. Moreover, the proposed algorithm is successfully applied to realize three constrained engineering test cases, which the results suggest that the improved WOA can effectively deal with the constrained functions as well.     

A novel elitist multiobjective optimization algorithm: Multiobjective extremal optimization

Recently, a general-purpose local-search heuristic method called extremal optimization (EO) has been successfully applied to some NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. This paper presents an investigation on EO with its application in numerical multiobjective optimization and proposes a new novel elitist (1 + λ) multiobjective algorithm, called multiobjective extremal optimization (MOEO). In order to extend EO to solve the multiobjective optimization problems, the Pareto dominance strategy is introduced to the fitness assignment of the proposed approach. We also present a new hybrid mutation operator that enhances the exploratory capabilities of our algorithm. The proposed approach is validated using five popular benchmark functions. The simulation results indicate that the proposed approach is highly competitive with the state-of-the-art multiobjective evolutionary algorithms. Thus MOEO can be considered a good alternative to solve numerical multiobjective optimization problems.     

Two improved harmony search algorithms for solving engineering optimization problems

This paper describes two new harmony search (HS) meta-heuristic algorithms for engineering optimization problems with continuous design variables. The key difference between these algorithms and traditional (HS) method is in the way of adjusting bandwidth (bw). bw is very important factor for the high efficiency of the harmony search algorithms and can be potentially useful in adjusting convergence rate of algorithms to optimal solution. First algorithm, proposed harmony search (PHS), introduces a new definition of bandwidth (bw). Second algorithm, improving proposed harmony search (IPHS) employs to enhance accuracy and convergence rate of PHS algorithm. In IPHS, non-uniform mutation operation is introduced which is combination of Yang bandwidth and PHS bandwidth. Various engineering optimization problems, including mathematical function minimization problems and structural engineering optimization problems, are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of these algorithms. In all cases, the solutions obtained using IPHS are in agreement or better than those obtained from other methods.     

Grey prediction evolution algorithm for global optimization

This article uses the grey prediction theory to structure a new metaheuristic: grey prediction evolution algorithm based on the even grey model. The proposed algorithm considers the population series of evolutionary algorithms as a time series, and uses the even grey model as a reproduction operator to forecast the next population (without employing any mutation and crossover operators). It is theoretically proven that the reproduction operator based on the even grey model is adaptive. Additionally, the algorithmic search mechanism and its differences with other evolutionary algorithms are analyzed. The performance of the proposed algorithm is validated on CEC2005 benchmark functions and a test suite composed of six engineering constrained design problems. The comparison experiments show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed algorithm.The proposed algorithm can be regarded as the first case of structuring metaheuristics by using the prediction theory. The novel algorithm is anticipated to influence two future works. The first is to propose more metaheuristics inspired by prediction theories (including some statistical algorithms). Another is that the theoretical results of these prediction systems can be used for this novel type of metaheuristics.     

Hybridizing local search algorithms for global optimization

In this paper, we combine two types of local search algorithms for global optimization of continuous functions. In the literature, most of the hybrid algorithms are produced by combination of a global optimization algorithm with a local search algorithm and the local search is used to improve the solution quality, not to explore the search space to find independently the global optimum. The focus of this research is on some simple and efficient hybrid algorithms by combining the Nelder–Mead simplex (NM) variants and the bidirectional random optimization (BRO) methods for optimization of continuous functions. The NM explores the whole search space to find some promising areas and then the BRO local search is entered to exploit optimal solution as accurately as possible. Also a new strategy for shrinkage stage borrowed from differential evolution (DE) is incorporated in the NM variants. To examine the efficiency of proposed algorithms, those are evaluated by 25 benchmark functions designed for the special session on real-parameter optimization of CEC2005. A comparison study between the hybrid algorithms and some DE algorithms and non-parametric analysis of obtained results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms outperform most of other algorithms and their difference in most cases is statistically considerable. In a later part of the comparative experiments, a comparison of the proposed algorithms with some other evolutionary algorithms reported in the CEC2005 confirms a better performance of our proposed algorithms.     

Quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization with Gaussian distributed local attractor point

This paper proposes a novel variant of quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (QPSO) algorithm with the local attractor point subject to a Gaussian probability distribution (GAQPSO). The local attractor point in QPSO plays an important in that determining the convergence behavior of an individual particle. As such, the mean value and standard deviation of the proposed Gaussian probability distribution in GAQPSO are carefully selected. The distributions and diversities of the local attractor points in GAQPSO and QPSO are evaluated and compared. For the purpose of comparison, two variants of the GAQPSO algorithm are proposed by using a mutation probability and other types of probability distribution. The GAQPSO has been comprehensively evaluated on the suite of CEC2005 benchmark functions, and the experimental results are compared with those of the PSO and QPSO algorithms based on different probability distributions. It is shown by the results that the GAQPSO algorithm is an effective approach that can improve the QPSO performance considerably, that is, the GAQPSO algorithm is less likely to be stuck in local optima and hence it can achieve better solutions in most cases.     

Improved biogeography-based optimization with random ring topology and Powell's method

Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is a competitive population optimization algorithm based on biogeography theory with inherently insufficient exploration capability and slow convergence speed. To overcome limitations, we propose an improved variant of BBO, named PRBBO, for solving global optimization problems. In PRBBO, a hybrid migration operator with random ring topology, a modified mutation operator, and a self-adaptive Powell's method are rational integrated together. The hybrid migration operator with random ring topology, denoted as RMO, is created by using local ring topology to replace global topology, which can avoid the asymmetrical migration operation and enhance potential population diversity. The self-adaptive Powell's method is amended by using self-adaptive parameters for suiting evolution process to enhance solution precision quickly. Extensive experimental tests are carried out on 24 benchmark functions to show effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Simulation results were compared with original BBO, ABC, DE, other variants of the BBO, and other state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms. Finally, the effectiveness of operators on the performance of PRBBO is also discussed.     

Inspired grey wolf optimizer for solving large-scale function optimization problems

Grey wolf optimizer algorithm was recently presented as a new heuristic search algorithm with satisfactory results in real-valued and binary encoded optimization problems that are categorized in swarm intelligence optimization techniques. This algorithm is more effective than some conventional population-based algorithms, such as particle swarm optimization, differential evolution and gravitational search algorithm. Some grey wolf optimizer variants were developed by researchers to improve the performance of the basic grey wolf optimizer algorithm. Inspired by particle swarm optimization algorithm, this study investigates the performance of a new algorithm called Inspired grey wolf optimizer which extends the original grey wolf optimizer by adding two features, namely, a nonlinear adjustment strategy of the control parameter, and a modified position-updating equation based on the personal historical best position and the global best position. Experiments are performed on four classical high-dimensional benchmark functions, four test functions proposed in the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2005 special session, three well-known engineering design problems, and one real-world problem. The results show that the proposed algorithm can find more accurate solutions and has higher convergence rate and less number of fitness function evaluations than the other compared techniques.     

A particle swarm inspired multi-elitist artificial bee colony algorithm for real-parameter optimization

The Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is one of the most recent swarm intelligence based algorithms which simulates the foraging behavior of honey bee colonies. In this work, a particle swarm inspired multi-elitist ABC algorithm named PS-MEABC is proposed and applied for real-parameter optimization. In this modified version, the global best solution and an elitist randomly selected from the elitist archive are used to modify parameters of each food source in either onlooker bees or employed bees phases. PS-MEABC is compared with 5 state-of-the-art swarm based algorithms on CEC05 and BBOB12 benchmark functions in terms of four metrics: the mean error, the best error, the success rate (SR) and the expected running time (ERT). Wilcoxon signed ranks test results on the mean and the best error show that the performance of PS-MEABC is significantly better than or at least similar to these algorithms, and PS-MEABC has wider application range in terms of the success rate and faster convergence speed in terms of the expected running time. Our algorithm is comparable to its competitors with a fewer control parameters to be tuned.     

Differential Evolution algorithm with Separated Groups for multi-dimensional optimization problems

The classical Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm, one of population-based Evolutionary Computation methods, proved to be a successful approach for relatively simple problems, but does not perform well for difficult multi-dimensional non-convex functions. A number of significant modifications of DE have been proposed in recent years, including very few approaches referring to the idea of distributed Evolutionary Algorithms. The present paper presents a new algorithm to improve optimization performance, namely DE with Separated Groups (DE-SG), which distributes population into small groups, defines rules of exchange of information and individuals between the groups and uses two different strategies to keep balance between exploration and exploitation capabilities. The performance of DE-SG is compared to that of eight algorithms belonging to the class of Evolutionary Strategies (Covariance Matrix Adaptation ES), Particle Swarm Optimization (Comprehensive Learning PSO and Efficient Population Utilization Strategy PSO), Differential Evolution (Distributed DE with explorative-exploitative population families, Self-adaptive DE, DE with global and local neighbours and Grouping Differential Evolution) and multi-algorithms (AMALGAM). The comparison is carried out for a set of 10-, 30- and 50-dimensional rotated test problems of varying difficulty, including 10- and 30-dimensional composition functions from CEC2005. Although slow for simple functions, the proposed DE-SG algorithm achieves a great success rate for more difficult 30- and 50-dimensional problems.     

混合变异粒子群优化算法及其应用

为改善粒子群优化算法在解决复杂优化问题时收敛质量不高的不足,提出了一种改进的粒子群优化算法,即混合变异粒子群优化算法(HMPSO).HMPSO算法采用了带有随机因子的惯性权重取值更新策略,降低了标准粒子群优化算法中由于粒子飞行速度过大而错过最优解的概率,从而加速了算法的收敛速度.此外,通过混合变异进化环节的引入,缓解了...     

Transfer weight functions for injecting problem information in the multi-objective CMA-ES

The covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES) is one of the state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms for optimization problems with continuous representation. It has been extensively applied to single-objective optimization problems, and different variants of CMA-ES have also been proposed for multi-objective optimization problems (MOPs). When applied to MOPs, the traditional steps of CMA-ES have to be modified to accommodate for multiple objectives. This fact is particularly evident when the number of objectives is higher than 3 and, with a high probability, all the solutions produced become non-dominated. An open question is to what extent information about the objective values of the non-dominated solutions can be injected in the CMA-ES model for a more effective search. In this paper, we investigate this general question using several metrics that describe the quality of the solutions already evaluated, different transfer weight functions, and a set of difficult benchmark instances including many-objective problems. We introduce a number of new strategies that modify how the probabilistic model is learned in CMA-ES. By conducting an exhaustive empirical analysis on two difficult benchmarks of many-objective functions we show that the proposed strategies to infuse information about the quality indicators into the learned models can achieve consistent improvements in the quality of the Pareto fronts obtained and enhance the convergence rate of the algorithm. Moreover, we conducted a comparison with a state-of-the-art algorithm from the literature, and achieved competitive results in problems with irregular Pareto fronts.     

Advanced particle swarm assisted genetic algorithm for constrained optimization problems

A novel hybrid evolutionary algorithm is developed based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithms (GAs). The PSO phase involves the enhancement of worst solutions by using the global-local best inertia weight and acceleration coefficients to increase the efficiency. In the genetic algorithm phase, a new rank-based multi-parent crossover is used by modifying the crossover and mutation operators which favors both the local and global exploration simultaneously. In addition, the Euclidean distance-based niching is implemented in the replacement phase of the GA to maintain the population diversity. To avoid the local optimum solutions, the stagnation check is performed and the solution is randomized when needed. The constraints are handled using an effective feasible population based approach. The parameters are self-adaptive requiring no tuning based on the type of problems. Numerical simulations are performed first to evaluate the current algorithm for a set of 24 benchmark constrained nonlinear optimization problems. The results demonstrate reasonable correlation and high quality optimum solutions with significantly less function evaluations against other state-of-the-art heuristic-based optimization algorithms. The algorithm is also applied to various nonlinear engineering optimization problems and shown to be excellent in searching for the global optimal solutions.     

Stochastic Comparison Algorithm for Discrete Optimization with Estimation of Time-Varying Objective Functions

In this paper, the optimization of time-varying objective functions, known only through estimates, is considered. Recent research defined algorithms for static optimization problems. Based on one of these algorithms, we derive an optimization scheme for the time-varying case. In stochastic optimization problems, convergence of an algorithm to the optimum prevents the algorithm from being efficiently adaptive to changes of the objective function if it is time-varying. So, convergence cannot be required in a time-varying scenario. Rather, we require convergence to the optimum with high probability together with a satisfactory dynamical behavior. Analytical and simulative results illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithm compared with other optimization techniques.     

A memetic Differential Evolution approach in noisy optimization

This paper proposes a memetic approach for solving complex optimization problems characterized by a noisy fitness function. The proposed approach aims at solving highly multivariate and multi-modal landscapes which are also affected by a pernicious noise. The proposed algorithm employs a Differential Evolution framework and combines within this three additional algorithmic components. A controlled randomization of scale factor and crossover rate are employed which should better handle uncertainties of the problem and generally enhance performance of the Differential Evolution. Two combined local search algorithms applied to the scale factor, during offspring generation, should enhance performance of the Differential Evolution framework in the case of multi-modal and high dimensional problems. An on-line statistical test aims at assuring that only strictly necessary samples are taken and that all pairwise selections are properly performed. The proposed algorithm has been tested on a various set of test problems and its behavior has been studied, dependent on the dimensionality and noise level. A comparative analysis with a standard Differential Evolution, a modern version of Differential Evolution employing randomization of the control parameters and four metaheuristics tailored to optimization in a noisy environment has been carried out. One of these metaheuristics is a classical algorithm for noisy optimization while the other three are modern Differential Evolution based algorithms for noisy optimization which well represent the state-of-the-art in the field. Numerical results show that the proposed memetic approach is an efficient and robust alternative for various and complex multivariate noisy problems and can be exported to real-world problems affected by a noise whose distribution can be approximated by a Gaussian distribution.     

改进鲸鱼优化算法在电力负荷调度中的应用

为了提高鲸鱼优化算法(WOA)的全局优化性能, 提出了一种基于黄金分割搜索的改进鲸鱼优化算法(GWOA)。首先利用黄金分割搜索对WOA的初始种群进行初始化, 使得初始种群能够尽可能的靠近全局最优解, 然后利用黄金分割搜索所形成的变区间, 进行变区间黄金分割非均匀变异操作, 以增加WOA的粒子多样性和提高粒子跳出局部最优陷阱的能力, 从而改善WOA的寻优性能。选取了15个大规模测试函数进行数值仿真测试, 仿真结果和统计分析表明GWOA的寻优性能要优于对比文献的改进鲸鱼优化算法(IWOA)。此外, 将GWOA用于对工程实际应用领域中的电力负荷优化调度问题进行实例分析, 实例应用结果表明, GWOA能有效对电力负荷优化调度问题进行寻优求解。     

ParEGO extensions for multi-objective optimization of expensive evaluation functions

This paper deals with multi-objective optimization in the case of expensive objective functions. Such a problem arises frequently in engineering applications where the main purpose is to find a set of optimal solutions in a limited global processing time. Several algorithms use linearly combined criteria to use directly mono-objective algorithms. Nevertheless, other algorithms, such as multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) and model-based algorithms, propose a strategy based on Pareto dominance to optimize efficiently all criteria. A widely used model-based algorithm for multi-objective optimization is Pareto efficient global optimization (ParEGO). It combines linearly the objective functions with several random weights and maximizes the expected improvement (EI) criterion. However, this algorithm tends to favor parameter values suitable for the reduction of the surrogate model error, rather than finding non-dominated solutions. The contribution of this article is to propose an extension of the ParEGO algorithm for finding the Pareto Front by introducing a double Kriging strategy. Such an innovation allows to calculate a modified EI criterion that jointly accounts for the objective function approximation error and the probability to find Pareto Set solutions. The main feature of the resulting algorithm is to enhance the convergence speed and thus to reduce the total number of function evaluations. This new algorithm is compared against ParEGO and several MOEA algorithms on a standard benchmark problems. Finally, an automotive engineering problem allowing to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach is given as an example of a real application: the parameter setting of an indirect tire pressure monitoring system.