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

Tornado: An Autonomous Chaotic Algorithm for Large Scale Global Optimization

In this paper we propose an autonomous chaotic optimization algorithm, called Tornado, for large scale global optimization problems. The algorithm introduces advanced symmetrization, levelling and fine search strategies for an efficient and effective exploration of the search space and exploitation of the best found solutions. To our knowledge, this is the first accurate and fast autonomous chaotic algorithm solving large scale optimization problems. A panel of various benchmark problems with different properties were used to assess the performance of the proposed chaotic algorithm. The obtained results has shown the scalability of the algorithm in contrast to chaotic optimization algorithms encountered in the literature. Moreover, in comparison with some state-of-the-art meta-heuristics (e.g. evolutionary algorithms, swarm intelligence), the computational results revealed that the proposed Tornado algorithm is an effective and efficient optimization algorithm

A prescription of methodological guidelines for comparing bio-inspired optimization algorithms

Bio-inspired optimization (including Evolutionary Computation and Swarm Intelligence) is a growing research topic with many competitive bio-inspired algorithms being proposed every year. In such an active area, preparing a successful proposal of a new bio-inspired algorithm is not an easy task. Given the maturity of this research field, proposing a new optimization technique with innovative elements is no longer enough. Apart from the novelty, results reported by the authors should be proven to achieve a significant advance over previous outcomes from the state of the art. Unfortunately, not all new proposals deal with this requirement properly. Some of them fail to select appropriate benchmarks or reference algorithms to compare with. In other cases, the validation process carried out is not defined in a principled way (or is even not done at all). Consequently, the significance of the results presented in such studies cannot be guaranteed. In this work we review several recommendations in the literature and propose methodological guidelines to prepare a successful proposal, taking all these issues into account. We expect these guidelines to be useful not only for authors, but also for reviewers and editors along their assessment of new contributions to the field.This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science (TIN2016-8113-R, TIN2017-89517-P and TIN2017-83132-C2- 2-R) and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (PINV-18-XEOGHQ-19- 4QTEBP). Eneko Osaba and Javier Del Ser-would also like to thank the Basque Government for its funding support through the ELKARTEK and EMAITEK programs. Javier Del Ser-receives funding support from the Consolidated Research Group MATHMODE (IT1294-19) granted by the Department of Education of the Basque Government