Evolutionary Algorithm - Related Techniques

Related Techniques

Swarm algorithms, including:

• Ant colony optimization - Based on the ideas of ant foraging by pheromone communication to form paths. Primarily suited for combinatorial optimization and graph problems.
• Bees algorithm is based on the foraging behaviour of honey bees. It has been applied in many applications such as routing and scheduling.
• Cuckoo search is inspired by the brooding parasitism of the cuckoo species. It also uses Lévy flights, and thus it suits for global optimization problems.
• Differential search algorithm is based on the artificial-migration strategies of superorganisms. Please see http://www.pinarcivicioglu.com/ds.html for matlab code of DS.
• Particle swarm optimization - Based on the ideas of animal flocking behaviour. Also primarily suited for numerical optimization problems.

Other population-based metaheuristic methods:

• Firefly algorithm is inspired by the behavior of fireflies, attracting each other by flashing light. This is especially useful for multimodal optimization.
• Invasive weed optimization algorithm - Based on the ideas of weed colony behavior in searching and finding a suitable place for growth and reproduction.
• Harmony search - Based on the ideas of musicians' behavior in searching for better harmonies. This algorithm is suitable for combinatorial optimization as well as parameter optimization.
• Gaussian adaptation - Based on information theory. Used for maximization of manufacturing yield, mean fitness or average information. See for instance Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory.