1. Exploratory Power of the Harmony Search Algorithm: Analysis and Improvements for Global Numerical Optimization.
- Author
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Das, Swagatam, Mukhopadhyay, Arpan, Roy, Anwit, Abraham, Ajith, and Panigrahi, Bijaya K.
- Subjects
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MATHEMATICAL optimization , *SEARCH algorithms , *NUMERICAL analysis , *STOCHASTIC convergence , *PARTICLE swarm optimization , *CONSTRAINED optimization , *SPACE exploration - Abstract
The theoretical analysis of evolutionary algorithms is believed to be very important for understanding their internal search mechanism and thus to develop more efficient algorithms. This paper presents a simple mathematical analysis of the explorative search behavior of a recently developed metaheuristic algorithm called harmony search (HS). HS is a derivative-free real parameter optimization algorithm, and it draws inspiration from the musical improvisation process of searching for a perfect state of harmony. This paper analyzes the evolution of the population-variance over successive generations in HS and thereby draws some important conclusions regarding the explorative power of HS. A simple but very useful modification to the classical HS has been proposed in light of the mathematical analysis undertaken here. A comparison with the most recently published variants of HS and four other state-of-the-art optimization algorithms over 15 unconstrained and five constrained benchmark functions reflects the efficiency of the modified HS in terms of final accuracy, convergence speed, and robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011
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