A novel meta-optimizer for evolutionary algorithms: bipolar mating tendency


Gencal M. C., ORAL M.

PAMUKKALE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES-PAMUKKALE UNIVERSITESI MUHENDISLIK BILIMLERI DERGISI, cilt.28, sa.2, ss.313-323, 2022 (ESCI) identifier

Özet

Recent studies show that the performance of Evolutionary Algorithms often depends on choosing appropriate parameter configurations. Thus, researchers have generally tuned these parameters either looking at the similar research areas in the literature or manually, e.g. Grid Search. However, searching the parameter manually is laborious and time-consuming; therefore, meta-optimization techniques have become commonly used methods to adjust parameters of an algorithm. These techniques can be classified in two widespread manners: off-line, tuning parameters of an algorithm before the algorithm initiates, and on-line, tuning the parameters while it is working. In this paper, Bipolar Matching Tendency (BMT) algorithm has been chosen as the selection method of a Genetic Algorithm (GA). The new obtained algorithm is named GA-BMT and has been used for the first time as an online metaoptimizer. In addition, the paper utilizes two search algorithms (Grid Search, Coarse to Fine Search) with three meta-optimization methods (Standard GA, Particle Swarm Optimization, GA-BMT) to investigate the best parameter settings of the Standard GA for 17 test functions, and offers a comparative work by comparing their results. Furthermore, non-parametric statistical tests, Friedman and Wilcoxon Signed Rank, were performed to demonstrate the significance of the results. Based on the all results that achieved, GA-BMT presents a reasonable achievement.