Multi-population inflationary differential evolution algorithm with adaptive local restart

In this paper a Multi-Population Inflationary Differential Evolution algorithm with Adaptive Local Restart is presented and extensively tested over more than fifty test functions from the CEC 2005, CEC 2011 and CEC 2014 competitions. The algorithm combines a multi-population adaptive Differential Evolution with local search and local and global restart procedures. The proposed algorithm implements a simple but effective mechanism to avoid multiple detections of the same local minima. The novel mechanism allows the algorithm to decide whether to start or not a local search. The local restart of the population, which follows the local search, is, therefore, automatically adapted

Evolutionary framework with reinforcement learning-based mutation adaptation

Although several multi-operator and multi-method approaches for solving optimization problems have been proposed, their performances are not consistent for a wide range of optimization problems. Also, the task of ensuring the appropriate selection of algorithms and operators may be inefficient since their designs are undertaken mainly through trial and error. This research proposes an improved optimization framework that uses the benefits of multiple algorithms, namely, a multi-operator differential evolution algorithm and a co-variance matrix adaptation evolution strategy. In the former, reinforcement learning is used to automatically choose the best differential evolution operator. To judge the performance of the proposed framework, three benchmark sets of bound-constrained optimization problems (73 problems) with 10, 30 and 50 dimensions are solved. Further, the proposed algorithm has been tested by solving optimization problems with 100 dimensions taken from CEC2014 and CEC2017 benchmark problems. A real-world application data set has also been solved. Several experiments are designed to analyze the effects of different components of the proposed framework, with the best variant compared with a number of state-of-the-art algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is able to outperform all the others considered.</p

Benchmarking Evolutionary Algorithms For Single Objective Real-valued Constrained Optimization - A Critical Review

Benchmarking plays an important role in the development of novel search algorithms as well as for the assessment and comparison of contemporary algorithmic ideas. This paper presents common principles that need to be taken into account when considering benchmarking problems for constrained optimization. Current benchmark environments for testing Evolutionary Algorithms are reviewed in the light of these principles. Along with this line, the reader is provided with an overview of the available problem domains in the field of constrained benchmarking. Hence, the review supports algorithms developers with information about the merits and demerits of the available frameworks.Comment: This manuscript is a preprint version of an article published in Swarm and Evolutionary Computation, Elsevier, 2018. Number of pages: 4

Nature-Inspired Algorithms in Real-World Optimization Problems

Eight popular nature inspired algorithms are compared with the blind random search and three advanced adaptive variants of differential evolution (DE) on real-world problems benchmark collected for CEC 2011 algorithms competition. The results show the good performance of the adaptive DE variants and their superiority over the other algorithms in the test problems. Some of the nature-inspired algorithms perform even worse that the blind random search in some problems. This is a strong argument for recommendation for application, where well-verified algorithm successful in competitions should be preferred instead of developing some new algorithms

Sequential vs. Integrated Algorithm Selection and Configuration: A Case Study for the Modular CMA-ES

When faced with a specific optimization problem, choosing which algorithm to use is always a tough task. Not only is there a vast variety of algorithms to select from, but these algorithms often are controlled by many hyperparameters, which need to be tuned in order to achieve the best performance possible. Usually, this problem is separated into two parts: algorithm selection and algorithm configuration. With the significant advances made in Machine Learning, however, these problems can be integrated into a combined algorithm selection and hyperparameter optimization task, commonly known as the CASH problem. In this work we compare sequential and integrated algorithm selection and configuration approaches for the case of selecting and tuning the best out of 4608 variants of the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) tested on the Black Box Optimization Benchmark (BBOB) suite. We first show that the ranking of the modular CMA-ES variants depends to a large extent on the quality of the hyperparameters. This implies that even a sequential approach based on complete enumeration of the algorithm space will likely result in sub-optimal solutions. In fact, we show that the integrated approach manages to provide competitive results at a much smaller computational cost. We also compare two different mixed-integer algorithm configuration techniques, called irace and Mixed-Integer Parallel Efficient Global Optimization (MIP-EGO). While we show that the two methods differ significantly in their treatment of the exploration-exploitation balance, their overall performances are very similar

Evolutionary Computation 2020

Intelligent optimization is based on the mechanism of computational intelligence to refine a suitable feature model, design an effective optimization algorithm, and then to obtain an optimal or satisfactory solution to a complex problem. Intelligent algorithms are key tools to ensure global optimization quality, fast optimization efficiency and robust optimization performance. Intelligent optimization algorithms have been studied by many researchers, leading to improvements in the performance of algorithms such as the evolutionary algorithm, whale optimization algorithm, differential evolution algorithm, and particle swarm optimization. Studies in this arena have also resulted in breakthroughs in solving complex problems including the green shop scheduling problem, the severe nonlinear problem in one-dimensional geodesic electromagnetic inversion, error and bug finding problem in software, the 0-1 backpack problem, traveler problem, and logistics distribution center siting problem. The editors are confident that this book can open a new avenue for further improvement and discoveries in the area of intelligent algorithms. The book is a valuable resource for researchers interested in understanding the principles and design of intelligent algorithms

A NOVEL METAHEURISTIC ALGORITHM: DYNAMIC VIRTUAL BATS ALGORITHM FOR GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION

A novel nature-inspired algorithm called the Dynamic Virtual Bats Algorithm (DVBA) is presented in this thesis. DVBA is inspired by a bat’s ability to manipulate frequency and wavelength of the emitted sound waves when hunting. A role based search has been developed to improve the diversification and intensification capability of standard Bat Algorithm (BA). Although DVBA is inspired from bats, like BA, it is conceptually very different from BA. BA needs a huge number of population size; however, DVBA employs just two bats to handle the ”exploration and exploitation” conflict which is known as a real challenge for all optimization algorithms. Firstly, we study bat’s echolocation ability and next, the most known bat-inspired algorithm and its modified versions are analyzed. The contributions of this thesis start reading and imitating bat’s hunting strategies with different perspectives. In the DVBA, there are only two bats: explorer and exploiter bat. While the explorer bat explores the search space, the exploiter bat makes an intensive search of the local with the highest probability of locating the desired target. Depending on their location, bats exchange the roles dynamically. The performance of the DVBA is extensively evaluated on a suite of 30 bound-constrained optimization problems from Congress of Evolutionary Computation (CEC) 2014 and compared with 4 classical optimization algorithm, 4 state-of-the-art modified bat algorithms, and 5 algorithms from a special session at CEC2014. In addition, DVBA is tested on supply chain cost problem to see its performance on a complicated real world problem. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed DVBA outperform, or is comparable to, its competitors in terms of the quality of final solution and its convergence rates.Epoka Universit