Adaptive memetic differential evolution with multi-niche sampling and neighborhood crossover strategies for global optimization

Abstract

This paper proposes an adaptive memetic differential evolution with multi-niche sampling and neighborhood crossover strategies for global optimization. In the proposed algorithm, a multi-niche sampling strategy is designed to sample a subpopulation for evolution at each generation. In this strategy, the entire population is firstly divided into multiple niches by employing a certain niching strategy at each generation. A subpopulation is then dynamically sampled from the resulting niches such that supporting a diverse search at the early stage of evolution while an intensive search towards the end of evolution. The above strategy will be further coupled with a neighborhood crossover, which is devised to encourage high potential solutions for exploitation while low potential solutions for exploration, thus appropriately searching the solution space. Additionally, an adaptive local search (ALS) scheme along with an adaptive elimination operation (AEO) have been designed. The ALS aims to appropriately fine-tune promising solutions in the sampled subpopulation while the AEO tends to adaptively eliminate unpromising individuals in the population during evolution. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated on CEC’2015 benchmark functions and compared with related methods. Experimental results show that our algorithm can achieve a superior performance and outperform related methods. The results also confirm the significance of devised strategies in the proposed algorithm.