Multi-population adaptive-gathering evolutionary algorithm in function optimization

The effect of population isolation is discussed by means of an analysis of the domains of attraction of local optima. Separation among populations and adaptive gathering of the initial population are achieved by local evolution, so as to transform the multi-modal function optimization into a uni-modal function optimization. Combining the space-division-based (/spl mu/+1) selection approach, which has a rapid convergence speed in uni-modal function optimization, a new evolutionary algorithm is presented to automatically separate and gather the initial population according to its domains of attraction. Numerical simulation results show the global searching ability of the new algorithm.