An evolutionary algorithm with species-specific explosion for multimodal optimization

Ka-Chun Wong, Kwong-Sak Leung, Man Hon Wong

Abstract: This paper presents an evolutionary algorithm, which we call Evolutionary Algorithm with Species-specific Explosion (EASE), for multimodal optimization. EASE is built on the Species Conserving Genetic Algorithm (SCGA), and the design is improved in several ways. In particular, it not only identifies species seeds, but also exploits the species seeds to create multiple mutated copies in order to further converge to the respective optimum for each species. Experiments were conducted to compare EASE and SCGA on four benchmark functions. Cross-comparison with recent rival techniques on another five benchmark functions was also reported. The results reveal that EASE has a competitive edge over the other algorithms tested.