A Hybrid grey wolf optimizer and genetic algorithm for minimizing potential energy function

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new hybrid algorithm between the grey wolf optimizer algorithm and the genetic algorithm in order to minimize a simplified model of the energy function of the molecule. We call the proposed algorithm by Hybrid Grey Wolf Optimizer and Genetic Algorithm (HGWOGA). We employ three procedures in the HGWOGA. In the first procedure, we apply the grey wolf optimizer algorithm to balance between the exploration and the exploitation process in the proposed algorithm. In the second procedure, we utilize the dimensionality reduction and the population partitioning processes by dividing the population into sub-populations and using the arithmetical crossover operator in each sub-population in order to increase the diversity of the search in the algorithm. In the last procedure, we apply the genetic mutation operator in the whole population in order to refrain from the premature convergence and trapping in local minima. We implement the proposed algorithm with various molecule size with up to 200 dimensions and compare the proposed algorithm with 8 benchmark algorithms in order to validate its efficiency for solving molecular potential energy function. The numerical experiment results show that the proposed algorithm is a promising, competent, and capable of finding the global minimum or near global minimum of the molecular energy function faster than the other comparative algorithms.