The Endocrine Control Evolutionary Algorithm: an extensible technique for optimization

Abstract

This paper proposes an optimization technique inspired by the endocrine system, in particular by the intrinsic mechanism of hormonal regulation. The approach is applicable for many optimization problems, such as multimodal optimization in a static environment, multimodal optimization in a dynamic environment and multi-objective optimization. The advantage of this technique is that it is intuitive and there is no need for a supplementary mechanism to deal with dynamic environments, nor for major revisions in a multi-objective context. The Endocrine Control Evolutionary Algorithm (ECEA) is described. The ECEA is able to estimate and track the multiple optima in a dynamic environment. For multi-objective optimization problems, the issue of finding a good definition of optimality is solved naturally without using Pareto non-dominated in performance evaluation. Instead, the overall preference of the solution is used for fitness assignment. Without any adjustments, just by using a suitable fitness assignment, the ECEA algorithm performs well for the multi-objective optimization problems.