An Enhanced Searching Electromagnetism-like Mechanism Algorithm for Global Optimization Problem

Abstract

A global optimal algorithm derived from electromagnetism-like mechanism (EM), called as enhanced searching electromagnetism-like (ESEM) algorithm, was developed in this paper. The original EM is a meta-heuristic algorithm utilizing an attraction-repulsion mechanism (called as force F) to move sample points towards optimality in global optimization problems. Compared to the original algorithm, the best historical visited positions of each point were added into the search process in the improved algorithm. In ESEM, the search direction and step length of points were determined together by its best previously visited position, best point in current swarm and total force F. Preliminary experiments showed that additional best historical positions can help to improve the convergence property. More importantly, the improved searching mechanism can effectively solve the problem of stagnation of the original algorithm caused by too small values of force F.