Introductory Review of Swarm Intelligence Techniques

With the rapid upliftment of technology, there has emerged a dire need to fine-tune or optimize certain processes, software, models or structures, with utmost accuracy and efficiency. Optimization algorithms are preferred over other methods of optimization through experimentation or simulation, for their generic problem-solving abilities and promising efficacy with the least human intervention. In recent times, the inducement of natural phenomena into algorithm design has immensely triggered the efficiency of optimization process for even complex multi-dimensional, non-continuous, non-differentiable and noisy problem search spaces. This chapter deals with the Swarm intelligence (SI) based algorithms or Swarm Optimization Algorithms, which are a subset of the greater Nature Inspired Optimization Algorithms (NIOAs). Swarm intelligence involves the collective study of individuals and their mutual interactions leading to intelligent behavior of the swarm. The chapter presents various population-based SI algorithms, their fundamental structures along with their mathematical models.Comment: Submitted to Springe

Niching grey wolf optimizer for multimodal optimization problems

Metaheuristic algorithms are widely used for optimization in both research and the industrial community for simplicity, flexibility, and robustness. However, multi-modal optimization is a difficult task, even for metaheuristic algorithms. Two important issues that need to be handled for solving multi-modal problems are (a) to categorize multiple local/global optima and (b) to uphold these optima till the ending. Besides, a robust local search ability is also a prerequisite to reach the exact global optima. Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) is a recently developed nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm that requires less parameter tuning. However, the GWO suffers from premature convergence and fails to maintain the balance between exploration and exploitation for solving multi-modal problems. This study proposes a niching GWO (NGWO) that incorporates personal best features of PSO and a local search technique to address these issues. The proposed algorithm has been tested for 23 benchmark functions and three engineering cases. The NGWO outperformed all other considered algorithms in most of the test functions compared to state-of-the-art metaheuristics such as PSO, GSA, GWO, Jaya and two improved variants of GWO, and niching CSA. Statistical analysis and Friedman tests have been conducted to compare the performance of these algorithms thoroughly

A hybrid Grey Wolf optimizer with multi-population differential evolution for global optimization problems

The optimization field is the process of solving an optimization problem using an optimization algorithm. Therefore, studying this research field requires to study both of optimization problems and algorithms. In this paper, a hybrid optimization algorithm based on differential evolution (DE) and grey wolf optimizer (GWO) is proposed. The proposed algorithm which is called “MDE-GWONM” is better than the original versions in terms of the balancing between exploration and exploitation. The results of implementing MDE-GWONM over nine benchmark test functions showed the performance is superior as compared to other stat of arts optimization algorithm

Solving software project scheduling problem using grey wolf optimization

In this paper, we will explore the application of grey wolf optimization (GWO) methodology in order to solve the software project scheduling problem (SPSP) to seek an optimum solution via applying different instances from two datasets. We will focus on the effects of the quantity of employees as well as the number of tasks which will be accomplished. We concluded that increasing employee number will decrease the project’s duration, but we could not find any explanation for the cost values for all instances that studied. Also, we concluded that, when increasing the number of the tasks, both the cost and duration will be increased. The results will compare with a max-min ant system hyper cube framework (MMAS-HC), intelligent water drops algorithm (IWD), firefly algorithm (FA), ant colony optimization (ACO), intelligent water drop algorithm standard version (IWDSTD), and intelligent water drop autonomous search (IWDAS). According to these study and comparisons, we would like to say that GWO algorithm is a better optimizing tool for all instances, except one instance that FA is outperform the GWO

An Improved Binary Grey-Wolf Optimizer with Simulated Annealing for Feature Selection

This paper proposes improvements to the binary grey-wolf optimizer (BGWO) to solve the feature selection (FS) problem associated with high data dimensionality, irrelevant, noisy, and redundant data that will then allow machine learning algorithms to attain better classification/clustering accuracy in less training time. We propose three variants of BGWO in addition to the standard variant, applying different transfer functions to tackle the FS problem. Because BGWO generates continuous values and FS needs discrete values, a number of V-shaped, S-shaped, and U-shaped transfer functions were investigated for incorporation with BGWO to convert their continuous values to binary. After investigation, we note that the performance of BGWO is affected by the selection of the transfer function. Then, in the first variant, we look to reduce the local minima problem by integrating an exploration capability to update the position of the grey wolf randomly within the search space with a certain probability; this variant was abbreviated as IBGWO. Consequently, a novel mutation strategy is proposed to select a number of the worst grey wolves in the population which are updated toward the best solution and randomly within the search space based on a certain probability to determine if the update is either toward the best or randomly. The number of the worst grey wolf selected by this strategy is linearly increased with the iteration. Finally, this strategy is combined with IBGWO to produce the second variant of BGWO that was abbreviated as LIBGWO. In the last variant, simulated annealing (SA) was integrated with LIBGWO to search around the best-so-far solution at the end of each iteration in order to identify better solutions. The performance of the proposed variants was validated on 32 datasets taken from the UCI repository and compared with six wrapper feature selection methods. The experiments show the superiority of the proposed improved variants in producing better classification accuracy than the other selected wrapper feature selection algorithms

A spring search algorithm applied to engineering optimization problems

At present, optimization algorithms are used extensively. One particular type of such algorithms includes random-based heuristic population optimization algorithms, which may be created by modeling scientific phenomena, like, for example, physical processes. The present article proposes a novel optimization algorithm based on Hooke’s law, called the spring search algorithm (SSA), which aims to solve single-objective constrained optimization problems. In the SSA, search agents are weights joined through springs, which, as Hooke’s law states, possess a force that corresponds to its length. The mathematics behind the algorithm are presented in the text. In order to test its functionality, it is executed on 38 established benchmark test functions and weighed against eight other optimization algorithms: a genetic algorithm (GA), a gravitational search algorithm (GSA), a grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), teaching–learning-based optimization (TLBO), a grey wolf optimizer (GWO), a spotted hyena optimizer (SHO), as well as an emperor penguin optimizer (EPO). To test the SSA’s usability, it is employed on five engineering optimization problems. The SSA delivered better fitting results than the other algorithms in unimodal objective function, multimodal objective functions, CEC 2015, in addition to the optimization problems in engineering

A Comprehensive Review of Bio-Inspired Optimization Algorithms Including Applications in Microelectronics and Nanophotonics

The application of artificial intelligence in everyday life is becoming all-pervasive and unavoidable. Within that vast field, a special place belongs to biomimetic/bio-inspired algorithms for multiparameter optimization, which find their use in a large number of areas. Novel methods and advances are being published at an accelerated pace. Because of that, in spite of the fact that there are a lot of surveys and reviews in the field, they quickly become dated. Thus, it is of importance to keep pace with the current developments. In this review, we first consider a possible classification of bio-inspired multiparameter optimization methods because papers dedicated to that area are relatively scarce and often contradictory. We proceed by describing in some detail some more prominent approaches, as well as those most recently published. Finally, we consider the use of biomimetic algorithms in two related wide fields, namely microelectronics (including circuit design optimization) and nanophotonics (including inverse design of structures such as photonic crystals, nanoplasmonic configurations and metamaterials). We attempted to keep this broad survey self-contained so it can be of use not only to scholars in the related fields, but also to all those interested in the latest developments in this attractive area