SDERIME: Enhanced RIME algorithm with Sobol sequences and differential evolution for heavy calcium carbonate powder particle size distribution soft sensor model optimization

The original RIME algorithm is regarded as an efficient meta-heuristic algorithm, it has limitations such as an imbalance between exploration and exploitation, local optimal sensitivity, and suboptimal convergence accuracy. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an enhanced RIME algorithm with Sobol sequences strategy and differential evolution (DE) strategy (SDERIME), which introduce the Sobol sequences strategy in the initialization stage of the RIME algorithm, the elite DE strategy in the hard-rime puncture mechanism, and combine the DE strategy after rime-searching process. In the CEC2017&2022 benchmark functions and 6 engineering problems test, by comparing with 14 other algorithms, the experimental results and statistical analysis proved that SDERIME is effective and efficient in various optimization tasks. And the application of SDERIME in the particle size distribution soft-sensing model of the heavy calcium carbonate (HCC) vertical roller mill (VRM) system has improved the prediction accuracy. These findings indicate that SDERIME has wide applicability and can be used as an advanced optimization technology in a variety of practical applications.