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A review of population-based meta-heuristic algorithm

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Int. J. Advance. Soft Comput. Appl., Vol. 5, No. 1, March 2013
ISSN 2074-8523; Copyright © ICSRS Publication, 2013
www.i-csrs.org

A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

Algorithm
Zahra Beheshti, Siti Mariyam Hj. Shamsuddin

Soft Computing Research Group, Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi

Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, 81310 Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: [email protected]

Soft Computing Research Group, Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi

Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, 81310 Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract
Exact optimization algorithms are not able to provide an appropriate solution
in solving optimization problems with a high-dimensional search space. In these
problems, the search space grows exponentially with the problem size therefore;
exhaustive search is not practical. Also, classical approximate optimization
methods like greedy-based algorithms make several assumptions to solve the
problems. Sometimes, the validation of these assumptions is difficult in each
problem. Hence, meta-heuristic algorithms which make few or no assumptions
about a problem and can search very large spaces of candidate solutions have
been extensively developed to solve optimization problems these days. Among
these algorithms, population-based meta-heuristic algorithms are proper for
global searches due to global exploration and local exploitation ability. In this
paper, a survey on meta-heuristic algorithms is performed and several
population-based meta-heuristics in continuous (real) and discrete (binary)
search spaces are explained in details. This covers design, main algorithm,
advantages and disadvantages of the algorithms.

Keywords: Optimization, Meta-heuristic algorithm, Population-based meta-

heuristic Algorithm, high dimension search space, Continuous and discrete
search spaces.
Z. Beheshti et al. 2

1 Introduction
In the past decades, many optimization algorithms, including exact and
approximate algorithms, have been proposed to address optimization problems. In
the class of exact optimization algorithms, the design and implementation of
algorithms are usually based on methods such as dynamic programming,
backtracking and branch-and-bound methods [1]. However, these algorithms have
a good performance in many problems [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], they are not efficient in
solving larger scale combinatorial and highly non-linear optimization problems.
Due to the fact that the search space increases exponentially with the problem size
and exhaustive search is impractical in these problems. Also, traditional
approximate methods like greedy algorithms usually require making several
assumptions which might not be easy to validate in many situations [1]. Therefore,
a set of more adaptable and flexible algorithms are required to overcome these
limitations. Based on this motivation, several algorithms usually inspired by
natural phenomena have been proposed in the literature. Among them, some
meta-heuristic search algorithms with population-based framework have shown
satisfactory capabilities to handle high dimension optimization problems.

Artificial Immune System (AIS) [6], Genetic Algorithm (GA) [7], Ant Colony
Optimization (ACO) [8], Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) [9, 10], Stochastic
Diffusion Search (SDS) [11], Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) [12], Intelligent Water
Drops (IWD) [13], River Formation Dynamics (RFD) [14], Gravitational Search
Algorithm (GSA) [5] and Charged System Search (CSS) [16] are in the class of
such algorithms. These algorithms and their improved scheme have shown a good
performance in the wide range of problems such as neural network training [17,
18], pattern recognition [19, 20], function optimization [21, 22], image processing
[23, 24], data mining [25, 26], combinatorial optimization problems [27, 28] and
so on.

This paper provides an overview of meta-heuristic algorithms followed by

population-based meta-heuristics. The structure of this paper is organized as: the
basic concepts of meta-heuristic algorithms and meta-heuristics classification are
described in Section 2 and Section 3 respectively. A brief review of related works
is presented in Section 4. In Section 5, several population-based meta-heuristic
algorithms in real and binary search spaces are provided in details. Finally, a
discussion and summary of this paper will be demonstrated in Section 6 and
Section 7.

2 Concept of meta-heuristic
The words of “meta” and ‘‘heuristic” are Greek where, “meta” is “higher level” or
“beyond” and heuristics means ‘‘to find”, ‘‘to know”, ‘‘to guide an investigation”
or ‘‘to discover” [29]. Heuristics [30] are methods to find good (near-) optimal
3 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

solutions in a reasonable computational cost without guaranteeing feasibility or

optimality. In other words, meta-heuristics are a set of intelligent strategies to
enhance the efficiency of heuristic procedures. Laporte and Osman [31] defined a
meta-heuristic as: “An iterative generation process which guides a subordinate
heuristic by combining intelligently different concepts for exploring and
exploiting the search space, learning strategies are used to structure information in
order to find efficiently near-optimal solutions.”

According to Voss et al. [32], a meta-heuristic is: “an iterative master process that
guides and modifies the operations of subordinate heuristics to efficiently produce
high-quality solutions. It may manipulate a complete (or incomplete) single
solution or a collection of solutions per iteration. The subordinate heuristics may
be high (or low) level procedures, or a simple local search, or just a construction
method.”

A majority of these algorithms has a stochastic behavior and mimics biological or

physical processes. Different categories have been considered to classify meta-
heuristic algorithms so far. In the next section, their classification will be
described from different viewpoints.

3 Classification of meta-heuristic algorithms

Different ways based on the selected characteristics have been proposed to
classify meta-heuristics as shown in Fig. 1 [33]. This section briefly summarizes
the most important classes including nature-inspired against non-nature inspired,
population-based against single point search, dynamic against static objective
function, single neighborhood against various neighborhood structures, and
memory usage against memory-less methods [33, 34, 35].

3.1 Nature-inspired against non-nature inspired

This class is based on the origin of algorithm. The majority of meta-heuristics are
nature-inspired algorithms such as Ant colony Optimization (ACO), Particle
Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithms (GA). Also, some of them
are non-nature-inspired algorithms like Iterated Local Search (ILS) [36] and Tabu
Search (TS) [37].

3.2 Population-based against single point search

Meta-heuristics can also be classified according to the number of solutions used at
the same time. Trajectory methods, as illustrated in Fig. 2, are the algorithms
working based on a single solution at any time and encompass local search-based
meta-heuristics such as TS, ILS and Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) [38].
Population-based algorithms perform search with multiple initial points in a
parallel style like swarm-based meta-heuristics.
Z. Beheshti et al. 4

Fig. 1 Classification of meta-heuristic algorithms [33]

Fig. 2 Trajectory-based method

5 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

Swarm-based algorithms are made up of simple particles or agents interacting

locally with each other and with their environment [39]. Each particle follows one
or several rules without any centralized structure for controlling its behavior.
Consequently, local and random interactions among the particles are led to an
intelligent global behavior. These algorithms apply two approaches to achieve a
proper performance [40]: global exploration and local exploitation.

The exploration is the potency of expanding search space, whereas the

exploitation is the ability of finding the optimum solution around a good (near-)
optimal solution. Due to insufficient knowledge about the search space in the
initial steps, more exploration should be performed by the swarm to avoid
trapping into local optima. In contrast, more exploitation is required by lapse of
steps, so that the algorithm is able to tune itself in semi-optimal points. In other
words, an appropriate trade-off between exploration and exploitation is necessary
to have an efficient search.

To realize the concepts of exploration and exploitation, particles pass three phases
inspired from nature in each step, namely, self-adaptation, cooperation and
competition. In the self-adaptation phase, each particle enhances its performance.
Particles collaborate together by transferring information in the cooperation phase
and finally, they compete to survive in the competition phase. These concepts
direct an algorithm toward finding the best solution. [37].

3.3 Dynamic against static objective function

Another characteristic which can be employed for the meta-heuristics
classification is the way of utilizing the objective function. In other words, the
objective function is kept “as it is” in the problem representation by some
algorithms while some others, such as Guided Local Search (GLS) [41], modify it
during the search. The idea behind this approach is to escape from local optima by
changing the search landscape. Therefore, the objective function is modified by
incorporating the collected information during the search process.

3.4 Various against single neighborhood structure

The majority of meta-heuristic algorithms apply one single neighborhood
structure. In other words, the fitness landscape topology does not alter in the
course of the algorithm while others, like Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS),
employ a set of neighborhood structures. This latter structure gives the possibility
to diversify the search by swapping between different fitness landscapes.

3.5 Memory usage against memory-less methods

The use of memory is one of the most important features to classify meta-
heuristics. In other words, memory usage is known as one of the fundamental
Z. Beheshti et al. 6

elements of a powerful meta-heuristic. Memory-less algorithms carry out a

Markov process, as the information which is used to determine the next action is
the current state of the search process. There are several ways of using memory.
Also, the use of short term usually is different from long term memory. The first
usually keeps track of recently performed moves, visited solutions or, in general,
decisions taken. The second is usually an accumulation of synthetic parameters
about the search.

4 Related works
Many meta-heuristic algorithms have been proposed so far as shown in Table 1.
Genetic Algorithm (GA) as a population-based meta-heuristic algorithm was
suggested by Holland [42]. In the algorithm, a population of strings called
chromosomes encodes candidate solutions for optimization problems.

Simulated Annealing (SA) is a local search meta-heuristic proposed by

Kirkpatrick et al. [43] based on the way thermodynamic systems go from one
energy level to another. In this method, each point x of the search space is a state
and the function f(x) is an internal energy of a physical system in that state. The
goal is to transfer system from random initial state to a minimum energy state.
Therefore, some neighboring states x’ of the current state x are considered at each
step and based on probabilities it is decided whether system stays in the state x or
move to state x’. Finally, these probabilities move the system to states of lower
energy until the system achieves a good state for the application.

Farmer et al. [6] introduced Artificial Immune System (AIS) simulated the
structure and function of biological immune system to solve problems. The
immune system defends the body against foreign or dangerous cells or substances
which invade it. In fact, AIS copies the method which the human body acquires
immunity using vaccination against diseases. The AIS applies the VACCINE-AIS
algorithm for identifying the best solution from a given number of anti-bodies and
antigens. In AIS, the decision points and solutions are anti-bodies and antigens in
the immune system which are employed to solve optimization problems.

Tabu Search (TS) is a meta-heuristic local search algorithm introduced by Glover

and McMillan [37] and formalized in [44, 45]. In local search, the near neighbors
of each solution are checked in order to find an improved solution. In fact, TS
applies a local search to move from the current solution x to an improved solution
x' in the neighborhood of x. This process is continued until stopping criteria is
satisfied.

Another population-based algorithm is Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)

offered by Kennedy and Eberhart [9]. It is a global optimization algorithm which
the best solution can be represented as a point or surface in a multi-dimensional
7 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

search space. In the algorithm, particles are evaluated by their fitness values. They
move towards those particles which have better fitness values and finally obtain
the best solution.

Table 1: List of some meta-heuristic algorithms (1975-2012)

No. Year Algorithm
1. 1975 Holland introduced the Genetic Algorithm (GA).
2. 1977 Glover proposed Scatter Search (SS).
3. 1980 Smith elucidated genetic programming.
4. 1983 Kirkpatrick et al. proposed Simulated Annealing (SA).
5. 1986 Glover and McMillan offered Tabu Search (TS).
6. 1986 Farmer et al. suggested the Artificial immune system (AIS).
7. 1988 Koza registered his first patent on genetic programming.
8. 1989 Evolver provided the first optimization software using the GA.
9. 1989 Moscato presented Memetic Algorithm.
10. 1992 Dorigo proposed the Ant Colony Algorithm (ACO).
11. 1993 Fonseca and Fleming provided Multi-Objective GA (MOGA).
12. 1994 Battiti and Tecchiolli introduced Reactive Search Optimization (RSO)
principles for the online self-tuning of heuristics.
13. 1995 Kennedy and Eberhart proposed Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO).
14. 1997 Storn and Price suggested Differential Evolution (DE).
15. 1997 Rubinstein presented the Cross Entropy Method (CEM).
16. 1999 Taillard and Voss proposed POPMUSIC.
17. 2001 Geem et al. provided Harmony Search (HS).
18. 2001 Hanseth and Aanestad offered Bootstrap Algorithm (BA).
19. 2004 Nakrani and Tovey presented Bees Optimization (BO).
20. 2005 Krishnanand and Ghose introduced Glowworm Swarm Optimization
(GSO).
21. 2005 Karaboga proposed Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm (ABC).
22. 2006 Haddad et al. suggested Honey-bee Mating Optimization (HMO).
23. 2007 Hamed Shah-Hosseini offered Intelligent Water Drops (IWD).
24. 2007 Atashpaz-Gargari and Lucas introduced Imperialist Competitive
Algorithm (ICA).
25. 2008 Yang presented Firefly Algorithm (FA).
26. 2008 Mucherino and Seref suggested Monkey Search (MS).
27. 2009 Husseinzadeh- Kashan provided League Championship Algorithm
(LCA).
28. 2009 Rashedi et al. introduced Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA)
29. 2009 Yang and Deb offered Cuckoo Search (CS).
30. 2010 Yang developed Bat Algorithm (BA).
31. 2011 Shah-Hosseini introduced the Galaxy-based Search Algorithm (GbSA).
32. 2011 Tamura and Yasuda designed Spiral Optimization (SO).
33. 2011 Rao et al. presented Teaching-Learning-Based Optimization (TLBO)
algorithm.
34. 2012 Gandomi and Alavi proposed the Krill Herd (KH) Algorithm.
35. 2012 Çivicioglu introduced Differential Search Algorithm (DSA).
Z. Beheshti et al. 8

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) [8] algorithm models the behavior of ants
foraging and is useful for problems which require finding the shortest path as a
goal. In real world, when ants explore their environment, it lays down the
pheromones to direct each other toward resources. ACO also simulates this
method and each ant records similarly its position so that more ants locate better
solutions in later iterations. This trend continues until the best path is found.

Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is another population-based presented by

Karaboga [12]. ABC algorithm mimics the intelligent behavior of honey bees and
applies three phases to find the best solution: employed bee, onlooker bee and
scout bee phases. Employed and onlooker bees have local searches around the
neighborhood and choose food based on the deterministic and probabilistic
selection in their phases respectively. They select food sources based on their
experience and their nest mates and modify their positions. In Scout phase, bees
(scouts) fly and choose the food sources randomly without using experience. If
the nectar amount of a new source is higher than that of the previous one in their
memory, they memorize the new position and forget the previous one. Therefore,
ABC balances exploration and exploitation process with local and global search
methods in employed, onlooker and scouts phases and obtains the best solution.

Shah-Hosseini [13] proposed Intelligent Water Drops (IWD) algorithm inspired

by the behavior of water drops in natural rivers. In the rivers, water drops find
almost optimum paths to their destination through actions and reactions occurring
among them and their riverbeds. The IWD algorithm simulates this trend and uses
the constructive approach to find the optimum solution in a problem. Each
artificial water drop constructs a solution (path) by traversing in the search space
of the problem and modifying its environment. Among all these paths, the
optimum or near optimum path is chosen by the algorithm.

Atashpaz-Gargari and Lucas [46] introduced Imperialist Competitive Algorithm

(ICA). It is a socio-politically global search strategy to address different
optimization problems. The algorithm achieves the best solution based on a
competition among empires. The best solution is an imperialist with the best
power.

Another population-based algorithm is River Formation Dynamics (RFD) [14]

which is nature-inspired optimization and can be considered as a gradient version
of ACO. The algorithm copies the behavior of water to form rivers. Waters shape
the rivers by eroding the ground and depositing sediments. The altitudes of places
are dynamically changed and decreasing gradients are created by transforming
water in the environment. The gradients are followed by subsequent drops to
make new gradients, emphasizing the best ones. By this method, good solutions
are obtained in the form of decreasing altitudes. Due to the gradient orientation of
RFD, the algorithm is proper to solve problems which use graphs and trees.
9 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) was proposed based on the Newtonian

gravity law and mass interactions by Rashedi et al. [15]. In the algorithm, objects
in real world are considered as agents and their performance is measured by their
masses which depend on fitness function values. The position of each agent in the
search space shows a problem solution. The heaviest mass presents the optimum
solution in the search space. By lapse of time, masses are attracted by the heaviest
mass and are converged the best solution.

Also, Charged System Search (CSS) [16] was developed based on the Newtonian
laws from mechanics and the governing Coulomb and Gauss laws from
electrostatics. The algorithm is multi-agent and each agent is called Charged
Particle (CP). Each CP has an electric force and affects other CPs according to the
Coulomb and Gauss laws. This force gives acceleration to CP and the velocity of
each CP changes with time. The motion laws and the resultant forces determine
the new position (new solution) of the CPs. These positions are evaluated and
replaced with previous ones if these positions are better. The trend continues until
the maximum number of iterations achieves and obtains the best result to that
extent.

As the scope of this study is meta-heuristic population-based algorithms, in the

next section, some of the algorithms are explained in details for real and binary
search spaces.

5 Population-based meta-heuristic algorithms

This section describes GA and PSO as older, GSA and ICA as newer population-
based algorithms in continuous and discrete search spaces although ICA has been
defined only on real search space.

5.1 Population-based meta-heuristic algorithms in real search

space
The majority of meta-heuristic algorithms have been designed for real valued
vectors in search spaces. In this section, GA, PSO, ICA and GSA are elucidated in
the real search space, although GA is applied for both real and binary search space.

5.1.1 Genetic Algorithm (GA)

GA simulates the biological evolution process of chromosomes using selection,
crossover and mutation operators. Chromosomes present problem solutions and
are evaluated based on their fitness function to select parents. Selection is an
important process for choosing parents to reproduce new population and can
affect the convergence of GA. The convergence speed of different selection
schemes was first studied by Goldberg and Deb [47]. The commonly selection
Z. Beheshti et al. 10

methods are proportionate reproduction, tournament selection, ranking selection

and Genitor or steady state selection.

Roulette Wheel Selection or stochastic sampling with replacement is the simplest

method in proportionate reproduction. In this technique, parents are selected based
on their fitness. It means that chromosomes with better fitness have more chance
to be chosen as demonstrated in Fig. 3. For each chromosome i, a probability is
calculated as:

fi
pi  N
, (1)
 j 1 f j

Where, fi represents the fitness of chromosome i and N is population size.

Then, an ascending array is made according to the probabilities of the

chromosomes. N random numbers are generated in the range 0 to  Nj1 f j and
chromosomes are chosen based on their probabilities of selection. As
demonstrated in Fig. 3, Chromosome1 has more chance than others to be selected.
However, when the difference of the fitness values is very much, the method is
inefficient. For instance, if the best chromosome fitness is 95% of the roulette
wheel, the other chromosomes will have a few chances to be chosen.

Fig. 3 Roulette wheel selections

11 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

In Tournament Selection, a number of chromosomes are randomly selected from

the population and the two best are chosen as parents. The parents produce
offspring and this process is often repeated until reaching a tournament size. The
tournament size usually depends on the population size and takes values ranging
from 2 to population size.

In the method of ranking selection, each chromosome has a rank in population. It

means that the worst fitness will have fitness 1and the best will have fitness N
(population size). After this, all the chromosomes have a chance to be chosen. In
this method the best chromosomes are not considerably different from others
hence, it leads to slow convergence rate.

The main idea of Genitor or steady state selection is to survive the big part of
chromosomes in next generation. Therefore, a few chromosomes with high fitness
are chosen for creating a new offspring in each generation. Then, some
chromosomes with low fitness are deleted and the new offspring is replaced in
their place. The rest of population survives to generate new generation.

Other operators in GA are Crossover and Mutation. In Crossover, some parts of

two chromosomes are exchanged together. The crossover performs using several
methods such as one, two and uniform crossover as demonstrated in Fig. 4.
Therefore, one, two and several parts of parents’ chromosomes are exchanged in
one, two and uniform crossover respectively.

In Mutation, some parts of chromosomes randomly change in order to have better

performance and escape from local optima. It is possible to lose the best
chromosomes when new chromosomes are created by crossover and mutation
operators.

Elitism is a method which copies the best chromosome (or a few best
chromosomes) to new population and the rest is created by the mentioned
methods. Therefore, this method increases the performance of GA, because it
avoids losing the best-found solution [48]. The above steps have been illustrated
in Fig. 5.

Although GA has been extensively used in various problems, it suffers from some
disadvantages [49, 50, 51] such as:

1. Using complex operators for selection and cross over.

2. Unpredicted results.
3. Premature convergence rate.
4. Trapping into local optima.
5. Taking long run-time.
6. Weak local search.
Z. Beheshti et al. 12

7. .Difficult encoding scheme

Fig. 4 GA crossover

Step 1: Start.
Step 2: Create first generation of chromosomes.
Step 3: Define Parameters and fitness function.
Step 4: Calculate the fitness of each individual chromosome.
Step 5: Choose the chromosomes by Elitism method.
Step 6: Select a pair of chromosomes as parents.
Step 7: Perform Crossover and Mutation to generate new chromosomes.
Step 8: Combine the new chromosomes and the chromosomes of Elitism Set in
the new population (the next generation).
Step 9: Repeat Step 4 to Step 8 until reaching termination criteria.
Step 10: Return best solution.

Fig. 5 GA pseudo code

13 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

5.1.2 Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) in real search space

PSO is a swarm-based meta-heuristic algorithm which simulates the flock of birds
or insects motion in order to find the best solution. In the algorithm, the birds or
insects called particles and are initialized by random positions and velocities [9,
  
10]. Each particle is described by a group of vectors denoted as ( X i ,Vi , Pi ) in a
 
d–dimensional search space, where, X i and Vi are the position and velocity of the
ith particle defined as:


X i  xi1, xi 2 ,..., xid  for i  1,2,...,N . (2)

Vi  vi1, vi 2 ,..., vid  for i  1,2,...,N . (3)


Pi is the personal best position found by the ith particle:



Pi  pi1, pi 2 ,..., pid  for i  1,2,...,N . (4)


Also, the best position achieved by the entire population ( Pg ) is computed to
update the particle velocity:



Pg  p g1, p g 2 ,..., p gd .  (5)

 
From Pi and Pg , the next velocity and position of ith particle are updated by Eq.
(6) and Eq. (7):

 
vid t  1  wt vid t   C1  rand   pid t   xid t   C 2  rand  p gd t   xid t  , (6)
xid t  1  xid t   vid t  1 , (7)

Where, vid (t+1) and vid (t) are the next and current velocity of ith particle
respectively. w is inertia weight, C1 and C2 are acceleration coefficients, rand is
uniformly random number in the interval of [0, 1] and N is the number of particles.
xid (t+1) and xid (t) show the next and current position of ith particle.

In Eq. (6), the second and the third term are called cognition and social term
respectively. Also, |vid|<vmax is considered and vmax is set to a constant based
Z. Beheshti et al. 14

on the bounds of solution space by users. A larger value of w encourages a global

exploration (searching new areas) while a smaller inertia weight facilitates a local
exploitation [52]. It is usually decreased from 0.9 to 0.4 [10, 52].


In PSO algorithm, two models for choosing Pg are considered known as gbest (or
global topology) and lbest (or local topology) models. In global model, the
position of each particle is influenced by the best-fitness particle of entire
population in the search space whereas in the local model, each particle is affected
by the best-fitness particle chosen from its neighborhood. According to Bratton
and Kennedy [53], the lbest model can return better results than the gbest model
in many problems however; it might have lower convergence rate than gbest
model. The steps of PSO are shown in the Fig. 6.

Although PSO is easy to implement, it may face up to the slow convergence rate,
parameter selection problem and easily get trapped in a local optimum due to its
poor exploration when solving complex multimodal problems [54, 55, 56]. If a
particle falls into a local optimum, sometimes it cannot get rid of itself from the

position. In other words, if Pg obtained by the population is a local optimum and
the current position and the personal best position of particle i are in the local
optimum, the second and third term of Eq. (6) tend toward zero, also w is linearly
decreasing to near zero. Consequently, the next velocity of particle i tends toward
zero and its next position in Eq. (7) cannot change and the particle remains in the
local optimum. Therefore, variant PSO algorithms have been proposed to improve
the performance of PSO and to overcome these limitations.

Step 1: Start.
Step 2: Initialize the velocities and positions of population randomly.
Step 3: Evaluate fitness values of particles.
Step 4: Update Pi if particle fitness value iis better than particle best fitness value
i , for i = 1, .. ., N.
Step 5: Update Pg if particle fitness value i is better than global best fitness value,
for i = 1, . . ., N.
Step 6: Update the next velocity of particles.
Step 7: Update the next position of particles.
Step 8: Repeat steps 3 to 7 until the stop criterion is reached.
Step 9: Return best solution.

Fig. 6 PSO pseudo code

15 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

PSO is one of the most popular optimizer which has been widely applied in
solving optimization problem. Hence, the enhancement of performance and
theoretical studies of the algorithm have become attractive. Convergence analysis
and stability studies have been reported in [57, 58, 59, 60, 61]. Also, some
research on the performance of PSO has been done in terms of topological
structures, parameter studies and combination with auxiliary operations [62, 63].

In topological structures, Kennedy and Mendes proposed a ring topological

structure PSO (LPSO) [64] and a Von Neumann topological structure PSO
(VPSO) [65] to enhance the performance in solving multimodal problems. Also,
Dynamic Multi-Swarm PSO (DMS-PSO) introduced by Liang and Suganthan
[66] to improve the topological structure in dynamic way. This new neighborhood
structure has two important characters: Small sized swarms and randomly
regrouping schedule. Since the small sized swarms are searching using their own
best historical information, they are easy to converge to a local optimum because
of PSO’s convergence property. In this case, if the neighborhood structures are
kept unchanged, no information is exchanged among the swarms. To avoid this
situation, a randomized regrouping schedule is considered and the good
information obtained by each swarm is exchanged among the swarms. The new
neighborhood structure has better performance on complex multimodal problems
than classical neighborhood structure. Other topology structures have been also
proposed to improve the performance of PSO. For example, Fully Informed
particle swarm (FIPS) algorithm [67] used the information of the entire
neighborhood to influence the flying velocity.

In parameter studies, much research has been done on inertia weight w and
acceleration coefficients C1 and C2. Shi and Eberhart [10, 52] suggested that the
inertia weight w in Eq. (6) is linearly decreased by the iterative generations as Eq.
(8):

iter
w  wmax  ( wmax  wmin ) (8)
Maxiter

Where, iter is the current generation and Maxiter is maximum generations. The
wmax and wmin are usually set to 0.9 and 0.4 respectively. Moreover, other values
of w have been proposed to improve the searching ability of PSO. A fuzzy
adaptive w was introduced and a random version setting w to
0.5  random(0,1) / 2 was experimented for dynamic system optimization [68, 69].
Also, a constriction factor [57] was introduced based on Eq. (9) and the next
velocity was computed according to Eq. (11):
Z. Beheshti et al. 16

2
 , (9)
2     2  4

  C1  C2  4.1 , (10)

  
vid t  1   vid t   C1  rand   pid t   xid t   C 2  rand  p gd t   xid t  , (11)

Where, C1 and C2 are both set to 2.05 and  is mathematically equivalent to w, as

Eberhart and Shi [70] pointed out.

The experiment results have illustrated that both acceleration coefficients C1 and
C2 are essential to the success of PSO. Kennedy and Eberhart [9] offered a fixed
value of 2.0, and this configuration has been adopted by many other researchers.
Ratnaweera et al. [71] proposed self-organizing Hierarchical Particle Swarm
Optimizer with Time-Varying Acceleration Coefficients (HPSO-TVAC)
algorithm which used linearly time-varying acceleration coefficients, where a
larger C1 and a smaller C2 were set at the beginning and were gradually reversed
during the search. Therefore, particles allow moving around the search space
instead of moving toward the population best at the beginning. The w in HPSO-
TVAC is used as Eq. (8) and C1 and C2 are computed as:

iter
C j  (C jf  C ji )  C ji , j  1,2 (12)
Maxiter

Where, Cjf and Cji are the final and initial values of acceleration coefficients
which are changed from 2.5 to 0.5 for C1 and .from 0.5 to 2.5 for C2.

Comprehensive Learning PSO (CLPSO) [54] is another PSO algorithm to

improve the diversity of the swarm by encouraging each particle to learn from
different particles on different dimensions. In the algorithm, each particle velocity
can be updated by personal best position and other particles’ best position. Hence,
the velocity of each particle in CLPSO is given by:

 
vid t  1  w(t )vid (t )  C  rand  p f i( d ),d t   xid t  , (13)

Where, fi   f i1 , f i 2 ,..., f id  for i  1,2,...,N defines which particles’ best

position the particle i should follow. p ( d ),d can be the corresponding dimension
fi
of any particle’s best position including its own best position and the decision
depends on probability Pc, referred to as the learning probability, which can take
17 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

different values for different particles. For each dimension of particle i, a random
number is generated. Hence, a tournament selection procedure has been suggested
to choose randomly two particles and then select one with the best fitness as the
exemplar to learn from for that dimension. CLPSO has only one acceleration
coefficient C which is normally set to 1.494 and the inertia weight value is
changed from 0.9 to 0.4.

An Adaptive PSO (APSO) was proposed by Zhan et al. [55]. In this algorithm, an
evolutionary factor f is defined and computed with a fuzzy classification method
to design effective parameter and to improve the speed of solving optimization
problems. Hence, w changes based on a sigmoid mapping w(f) as shown in Eq.
(14). The large f will benefit for the global search and convergence state is
detected by small f.

1
w( f )  [0.4,0.9] . (14)
1  1.5e 2.6 f
f [0,1]

Moreover, acceleration coefficients are modified by increasing C1 and decreasing

C2 in where the maximum increment or decrement between two generations is
bounded by:

C i t  1  C i t    i  1,2 , (15)

Where,  is termed acceleration rate in interval [3.0, 4.0]. If the sum of C1 and C2
is larger than 4.0, then both C1 and C2 are normalized to:

Ci
Ci   4.0, i  1,2 (16)
C1  C 2


Another term in APSO is an Elitist Learning Strategy (ELS) to help Pg for
jumping out of local optimal regions when the search is identified to be in a

convergence state. If another better region is found for Pg , then the rest of the
swarm will follow to jump out and converge to the new region.

In addition to the mentioned algorithms, another active research trend in PSO is

hybrid PSO with other evolutionary paradigms. Angeline [72] introduced a
selection operation for PSO similar to GA. Also, hybridization of GA and PSO
has been applied [73] for recurrent artificial neural network design.
Z. Beheshti et al. 18

Zhan et al. [74] introduced Orthogonal Learning Particle Swarm Optimization

algorithm (OLPSO). The OL strategy could guide particles to discover useful
information from the personal best position and its neighborhood’s best position
in order to fly in better directions. In another study, Gao et al. [56] used PSO with
chaotic opposition-based population initialization and stochastic search technique
to solve complex multimodal problems. The algorithm called CSPSO found new
solutions in the neighborhoods of the previous best positions in order to escape
from local optima in multimodal functions.

In other studies, Beheshti et al. proposed Median-oriented Particle Swarm

Optimization (MPSO) [21] and Centripetal Accelerated Particle Swarm
Optimization (CAPSO) [22] based on the improved scheme of PSO and
Newtonian’s motion laws. The algorithms do not require any specific-algorithm
parameters and have been introduced for both local and global topology. Also,
CAPSO has been proposed for both real and binary search spaces.

Although many extended PSO algorithms have been presented so far, the
performance enhancement of PSO is an open problem because of its simple
structure of PSO and easy to use.

5.1.3 Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA)

ICA is a global search optimization algorithm inspired by imperialistic
competition [46]. The algorithm is population-based including countries and
imperialists. Each individual of the population is called a country. Some of the
best countries with the best cost are chosen as imperialist states and others named
colonies are divided among the imperialists according to their costs. Empires are
formed by imperialist states and their colonies. After forming the empires,
imperialistic competition is started among them to collapse weak empires and to
remain the most powerful empire.

To divide the colonies among the imperialists, the cost and power of each
imperialist are normalized and initial colonies are allocated to the empires as Eq.
(17) to Eq. (19):

C n  c n  max ci, (17)

i

pn 
Cn , (18)
N imp
 Ci
i 1
N .C n  round p n . N col, (19)
19 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

Where, cn is the cost of the nth imperialist and Cn and pn are the normalized cost
and power of the imperialist respectively. Also, N.Cn is the initial number of
colonies related to the nth empire and Ncol is the total number of initial colonies.
To form the nth empire, the N.Cn of the colonies are randomly selected and
allocated to the nth imperialist. In real world, the imperialist states try to make
their colonies as part of themselves. This process, called assimilation, is modelled
by moving all of the colonies toward the imperialist as illustrated in the Fig. 7. In
this Figure, θ and x are random angle and number with uniform distribution also;
d is the distance between the imperialist and colony.

x ~ U 0,   d  , (20)

 ~ U   ,   , (21)

Where,  ,  are parameters which cause colonies to move their relevant

imperialist in a randomly deviated direction.

Fig. 7 Movement of colonies toward their relevant imperialist

While a colony moves toward an imperialist, it might achieve a better position

than the imperialist. In this case, the colony and the imperialist change their
positions with each other. Also, it is possible that a revolution takes place among
colonies which changes the power or organizational structures of empire. In ICA,
revolution operator alters the colony position and revolution rate shows the
percentage of colonies which will randomly change their position.

Finally, empires compete together in order to possess and control other empires’
colonies as shown in Fig. 8. A colony of the weakest empire is selected and the
possession probability of each empire, Pp, is computed as Eq. (23). The
Z. Beheshti et al. 20

normalized total cost of an empire, N.T.Cn,, is acquired by Eq. (22) and used to
obtain the empire possession probability.

 
N .T . C n  T . C n  max T .C i . (22)
i

N .T .C n
pp  . (23)
n N imp
 N .T .C i
i 1

Fig. 8 Imperialistic competition

Vector P is formed in order to divide the mentioned colonies among empires:

 
P   p p , p p , p p ,..., p p . (24)
 1 2 3 N imp 

Vector R with the same size as P whose elements are uniformly distributed
random numbers is created:


R  r1, r 2 , r 3 ,..., r N imp  . (25)
r1, r 2 , r 3 ,..., r N imp  U 0,1
21 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

Vector D is formed so that the mentioned colony (colonies) is given to an empire

whose relevant index in D is maximized.


D  P  R  D1, D 2 , D3 ,..., D N imp . (26)

According to vector D, the process of choosing an empire is like the roulette

wheel in GA. However, this method is faster because the selection is based on
probabilities values.

The competition affects the power of empires and an empire power will be weaker
or stronger. Therefore, all colonies of the weak empire are owned by more
powerful empires and the weaker one is eliminated. The total power (cost) of an
empire is modelled by adding the power of imperialist country (cost) and a
percentage of mean power of its colonies (colonies costs) as follows:

 
T .C n  Cost imprialist n  mean Cost colonies of 
empiren , (27)

Where, T.Cn is the total cost of the nth empire and ξ is a positive small number.

The competition will be continued until remaining one empire or reaching

determined maximum iteration. The above steps have been summarized in Fig. 9.

Step 1: Start.
Step 2: Select some random points on the function and initialize the empires.
Step 3: Move the colonies toward their relevant imperialist (Assimilation).
Step 4: Randomly change the position of some colonies (Revolution).
Step 5: If there is a colony in an empire which has lower cost than the
imperialist, exchange the positions of that colony and the imperialist.
Step 6: Unite the similar empires.
Step 7: Compute the total cost of all empires.
Step 8: Pick the weakest colony (colonies) from the weakest empires and give it
(them) to one of the empires (Imperialistic competition).
Step 9: Eliminate the powerless empires.
Step 10:If stop conditions satisfied, stop, if not go to Step 3.

Fig. 9 ICA pseudo code

Although ICA has shown good performance in many problems [75, 76, 77], it
faces some drawbacks which cause the use of the algorithm to be difficult:
Z. Beheshti et al. 22

1. Using many equations and complex operators.

2. Long computational time.
3. Tuning many parameters.
4. Design only for continuous (real) search space.

5.1.4 Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) in real search space

GSA [15] is a meta-heuristic algorithm based on the Newtonian gravity and
motion laws. According to the gravity law, objects attract each other by gravity
force [78]. This force depends directly on the product of both objects masses and
inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. In GSA, the
objects of real world are considered as agents and their masses depend on fitness
function values. The position of each agent in the search space shows a problem
solution. The heaviest mass presents an optimum solution in the search space. By
lapse of time, masses are attracted by the heaviest mass and are converged to the
best solution. Based on this law, GSA defines a system with N agents in a d-
dimensional search space. The position of the ith agent is shown as:


X i  xi1, xi 2 ,..., xid  for i  1,2,...,N . (28)

Where, xid presents the position of ith agent in the dth dimension.

At the beginning, these positions are initialized randomly. Then, the gravity force
of mass j on mass i at specific time t is computed as follows:

M i t  M j t 
F ij , d t   Gt   
x jd t   xid t  , (29)
Rij t   

Where, Mi and Mj are the masses of agent i and agent j respectively.  is a small
constant. Rij (t) is the Euclidean distance between probe i and j at time t:

Rij t   xi t , x j t  . (30)
2

Also, G(t) is gravitational constant initialized at the beginning and will be reduced
with time t to control the search accuracy. G is a function with the initial value of
G0:

Gt   GG0 , t  . (31)

In the Eq. (29), Mi (t) is calculated as Eq. (33).

23 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

fit i t   worstt 
mi t   , (32)
best t   worstt 
mi t 
M i t   N , (33)
 j 1 m j t 

Where, fiti (t) is the fitness value of agent i at time t. Also, best(t) and worst(t) are
the best and the worst values of fitness functions at time t.

The total force acting on agent i at time t in dimension d is considered as:

F id t    N
jkbest, j i rand j ij , d t 
F , (34)

Where, randj is a random number in the range of [0, 1]. Kbest is the set of first K
agents with the best fitness value and biggest mass. At the beginning, Kbest is
initialized by K0 and linearly reduced during the running time of algorithm.

Regarding the motion law, the force gives acceleration to the agent i:

F id t 
aid t   . (35)
M i t 

This acceleration moves the agent from a position to another position. Hence, the
next velocity of agent i in dimension d is computed as the sum of its current
velocity and its acceleration:

vid t 1  vid t   rand i aid t  . (36)

Also, the next position is considered as Eq. (37):

xid t  1  xid t   vid t  1 , (37)

Where, vid (t+1) and xid (t) are the next velocity and the current position of agent
i in dimension d.

Fig. 10 shows the pseudo code of GSA. As seen, algorithm is initialized randomly
and each agent is evaluated based on its fitness value. After computing the total
force and acceleration, the velocity and position each agent are updated. These
steps will be continued until stopping criteria is met and the best solution is
returned by the algorithm.
Z. Beheshti et al. 24

Similar to other meta-heuristic algorithms, GSA also has some weaknesses such
as having complex operators and taking long computational time.

Step 1: Start.
Step 2: Randomized initialization.
Step 3: Fitness evaluation of agents.
Step 4: Update G(t), best(t), worst(t) and Mi(t) for i = 1,2,...,N.
Step 5: Calculation of the total force in different directions.
Step 6: Calculation of acceleration and velocity.
Step 7: Updating agents’ position.
Step 8: Repeat steps 3 to 7 until the stop criterion is reached.
Step 9: Return best solution.

Fig. 10 GSA pseudo code

5.2 Population-based meta-heuristic algorithms in binary

search space
The binary search space can be considered as a hypercube which a particle or an
agent can move to nearer and farther its corners by flipping various numbers of
the bits [79].

Each dimension has only a binary value of ‘0’ or ‘1’. Therefore, the particle
velocity can be considered by the number of bits changed per iteration, or the
Hamming distance between the particle at time t and t+l. Consequently, updating
the particle position happens when a switching between ‘0’ and ‘1’ values occurs.

Based on the mentioned rules, the binary versions of PSO and GSA have been
proposed by Kennedy and Eberhart [79] and Rashedi et al. [80] respectively. In
the next subsections, an overview of these algorithms is briefly represented to
provide an appropriate background of binary search space.

5.2.1 PSO in binary search space (BPSO)

BPSO operates on discrete binary variables, therefore, the main difference
between binary PSO and PSO is that the particle position has two values ‘0’ or ‘1’.
Hence, the velocity of particle in BPSO is calculated as PSO algorithm (Eq. (6))
and is transferred into a probability function in the interval of [0, 1] in order to
update the particle position as shown in Eq. (38) and Eq. (39):

S vid t  1 
1
, (38)
1 e vid t 1
25 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

if rand  S vid t  1 then xid t  1  1

, (39)
else xid t  1  0 for i  1,2,...,N

 
Where, Vi  vi1, vi 2 ,..., vid  and X i  xi1, xi 2 ,..., xid  are the velocity and
position of ith particle respectively, and N is the number of particles. For better
convergence, |vid|<vmax is considered with vmax = 6.

Although BPSO has been applied in different discrete problems [81, 82, 83], its
convergence rate is not good in many applications [84].

5.2.2 GSA in binary search space (BGSA)

In binary mode of GSA [80], updating the force, acceleration and velocity are
similar to the GSA algorithm (Eq. (29) to Eq. (36)). Also, Rij (t) in the Eq. (30) is
computed as hamming distance between two agents i and j, and G can be
considered as a linear decreasing function:

 t
Gt   G0 1   , (40)
 T

Where, G0 is a constant value, t and T are current iteration and the total number of
iteration respectively.

Moreover, the value of position is switched between ‘0’ and ‘1’ based on the
velocity. Therefore, a probability function is defined to map the value of velocity
to the range of [0, 1]. In other words, BGSA modifies the velocity according to Eq.
(36) and the new position changes to either ‘0’ or ‘1’ based on the given
probability of function as demonstrated in Eq.(41) and Eq. (42):

S vid t  1  tanhvid t  1 , (41)

if rand  S vid t  1 then xid t  1  complement xid t 
, (42)
else xid t  1  xid t  for i  1,2,...,N

Similar to BPSO, in this context, |vid|<vmax and vmax =6 are considered.

Although the experiments of meta-heuristic algorithms have shown promising

results and many researchers have tried to improve the performance of these
algorithms in optimization problems [85, 86, 87, 88, 89], more research is still
needed to overcome the disadvantages of these algorithms and to enhance their
efficiency.
Z. Beheshti et al. 26

6 Discussion
Exact optimization algorithms are not efficient in solving large scale
combinatorial and multimodal problems. In these problems, exhaustive search for
the algorithms is impractical since the search space develops exponentially with
the problem size. Hence, many researchers have applied meta-heuristic algorithms
to solve the problems. These algorithms have many advantages to name a few:

1. They are robust and can adapt solutions with changing conditions and
environment.
2. They can be applied in solving complex multimodal problems.
3. They may incorporate mechanisms to avoid getting trapped in local
optima.
4. They are not problem-specific algorithm.
5. These algorithms are able to find promising regions in a reasonable
time due to exploration and exploitation ability.
6. They can be easily employed in parallel processing.

Although the mentioned algorithms have obtained satisfactory results in various

fields, they do not guarantee an optimal solution is ever found also they have
some unavoidable disadvantages.

For instance, GA has the inherent drawbacks of prematurity convergence and

unpredictable results. Also; it uses complex functions in selection and crossover
operators and sometimes, the encoding scheme is difficult. PSO suffers from
trapping into local optima and slow convergence speed, whereas GSA and ICA
take long computational time to achieve the results. Furthermore, some of these
algorithms have several parameters to tune and often parameters setting is a
challenge for various optimization problems. Another noteworthy point is that
many problems are expressed in a binary representation. In other words, some
solutions are encoded binary form or some problems are binary in nature.
Nevertheless, some meta-heuristic algorithms are designed for only continuous
(real) or discrete (binary) search space and sometimes, they have good
performance only for one of the search spaces. For example, ICA and the original
of ACO have been designed for continuous and discrete search space respectively.
Also, binary PSO has some inherent disadvantages such as poor convergence rate
and failure to achieve desired results which bring about a decrease in performance
of algorithm in the binary search space. Generally, the main disadvantages of
using meta-heuristics are summarized as: trapping into local optima, slow
convergence speed, long computational time, tuning many parameters, difficult
encoding scheme and having good performance only in real or binary search
spaces. Hence, the performance enhancement of previous meta-heuristics or even
27 A Review of Population-based Meta-Heuristic

introduction of new ones seems to be necessary. Table 2 provides the strengths

and weaknesses of some well-known meta-heuristic algorithms.
Table 2: Advantages and disadvantages of some meta-heuristic algorithms
Algorithm Advantages Disadvantages
The ability of: 1. Slow convergence rate
1. Solving different kinds of 2. Finding sub-optimal solution
optimization problems 3. Unpredictable results
2. Finding a global best solution 4. Dependency of the crossover
GA
in many problems and mutation rates on the
[49, 50 , 51]
3. Easy to combining with other stability and convergence.
algorithms 5. Weak local search
4. Design for real and binary 6. Difficult encoding scheme
search space
1. It explores new search areas 1. Finding sub-optimal solution
AIS 2. Free of local optima rather than the exact optimum
[51] 3. It is data driven self-adaptive solution
methods. 2. Too many parameter setting
1. Low computational time Dependency of the solution
2. Free of local optima quality on:
SA 3. Easy for implementation 1. Maximum iteration number of
[90, 91] 4. Convergent property the inner loop (cooling
schedule)
2. Initial temperature
1. Scalability, robustness and 1. No easy to code.
flexibility in dynamic 2. Using trial and errors to
environments parameters initializations
ACO
2. Proper for graph-based 3. The original algorithm has
[92, 93]
problems been design for discrete search
space
4. Difficult theoretical analysis
1. Simple structure 1. Weak local search
2. Easy to implement 2. Slow convergence rate and
3. Fast and cheap trapping into local optima
4. Having few parameters to when solving complex
PSO
adjust multimodal problems
[39, 54, 56, 94]
5. Efficient global search
approach
6. Less dependent on initial
points
1. Implementation of ICA code 1. Using many equations and
by author complex operators
2. Compatible in different 2. Long computational time
ICA problems 3. Tuning many parameters
4. Design only for continuous
(real) search space.
1. Implementation of GSA and 1. Using complex operators
GSA BGSA code by author 2. Long computational time
Z. Beheshti et al. 28

2. Compatible in different
problems

7 Conclusion
In this paper, we have presented and compared most important meta-heuristic
algorithms. In the algorithms, several techniques have been considered to improve
the performance of meta-heuristics. Meanwhile, none of meta-heuristic algorithms
are able to present a higher performance than others in solving all problems. Also,
existing algorithms suffer from some drawbacks such as slow convergences rate,
trapping into local optima, having complex operators, long computational time,
need to tune many parameters and design for only real or binary search space.
Hence, proposing new meta-heuristic algorithms to minimizing the disadvantages
is an open problem.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Soft Computing Research Group (SCRG),
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru Malaysia, for the support in
making this study a success.

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