Team of Bayesian optimization algorithms to solve task assignment problems in heterogeneous computing systems

Abstract

A Bayesian optimization algorithm (BOA) belongs to estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs). It is characterized by combining a Bayesian network and evolutionary algorithms to solve nearly decomposable optimization problems. BOA is less popularly applied to solve high dimensionality complex optimization problems. A key reason is that the cost of training all dimensions by BOA becomes expensive with the increase of problem dimensionality. Since data are relatively sparse in a high dimensional space, even though BOA can train all dimensions simultaneously, the interdependent relations between different dimensions are difficult to learn. Its search ability is thus significantly reduced. In this paper, we propose a team of Bayesian optimization algorithms (TBOA) to search and learn dimensionality. TBOA consists of multiple BOAs, in which each BOA corresponds to a dimension of the solution domain and it is responsible for the search of this dimension's value region. The proposed TBOA is used to solve the real problem of task assignment in heterogeneous computing systems. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the computational cost of the overall training in TBOA is decreased very significantly while keeping high solution accuracy.