An Orthogonal Dynamic Evolutionary Algorithm with Niches.

A new dynamic evolutionary algorithm based on orthogonal design (denoted by ODEA) is proposed in present paper. Its population does not consist of individuals (solution vectors), but of niches, a properly small hyper-rectangle where orthogonal design method likely work well. Each niche selects the best solution found so far as its representative. And orthogonal design method is employed to find potentially good solution which is probably the representative in the niche. The niche mutation, the only genetic operator in this evolutionary algorithm, is guided by the representative of the niche, therefore, the fitness of the offspring is likely better than that of its father, furthermore, ODEA evolves fast. We employ a complex benchmark (moving peaks functions) testing the new approach and the numerical experiments show that ODEA performs much better than SOS [1]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]