scholarly journals A New Metaheuristic Inspired by the Vapour-Liquid Equilibrium for Continuous Optimization

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 2080 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique Cortés-Toro ◽  
Broderick Crawford ◽  
Juan Gómez-Pulido ◽  
Ricardo Soto ◽  
José Lanza-Gutiérrez

In this article, a novel optimization metaheuristic based on the vapour-liquid equilibrium is described to solve highly nonlinear optimization problems in continuous domains. During the search for the optimum, the procedure truly simulates the vapour-liquid equilibrium state of multiple binary chemical systems. Each decision variable of the optimization problem behaves as the molar fraction of the lightest component of a binary chemical system. The equilibrium state of each system is modified several times, independently and gradually, in two opposite directions and at different rates. The best thermodynamic conditions of equilibrium for each system are searched and evaluated to identify the following step towards the solution of the optimization problem. While the search is carried out, the algorithm randomly accepts inadequate solutions. This process is done in a controlled way by setting a minimum acceptance probability to restart the exploration in other areas to prevent becoming trapped in local optimal solutions. Moreover, the range of each decision variable is reduced autonomously during the search. The algorithm reaches competitive results with those obtained by other stochastic algorithms when testing several benchmark functions, which allows us to conclude that our metaheuristic is a promising alternative in the optimization field.

1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. V. Sreenivasan ◽  
K. J. Waldron ◽  
S. Mukherjee

Mechanisms interacting with their environments that possess complete contact force controllability such as multifingered hands and walking vehicles are considered in this article. In these systems, the redundancy in actuation can be used to optimize the force distribution characteristics. The resulting optimization problems can be highly nonlinear. Here, the redundancy in actuation is characterized using geometric reasoning which leads to simplifications in the formulation of the optimization problems. Next, advanced polynomial continuation techniques are adapted to solve for the global optimum of an important nonlinear optimization problem for the case of four frictional contacts. The algorithms developed here are not suited for real-time implementation. However, these algorithms can be used in off-line force planning, and they can be used to develop look-up tables for certain applications. The outputs of these algorithms can also be used as a baseline to evaluate the effectiveness of sub-optimal schemes.


Author(s):  
Adam N. Elmachtoub ◽  
Paul Grigas

Many real-world analytics problems involve two significant challenges: prediction and optimization. Because of the typically complex nature of each challenge, the standard paradigm is predict-then-optimize. By and large, machine learning tools are intended to minimize prediction error and do not account for how the predictions will be used in the downstream optimization problem. In contrast, we propose a new and very general framework, called Smart “Predict, then Optimize” (SPO), which directly leverages the optimization problem structure—that is, its objective and constraints—for designing better prediction models. A key component of our framework is the SPO loss function, which measures the decision error induced by a prediction. Training a prediction model with respect to the SPO loss is computationally challenging, and, thus, we derive, using duality theory, a convex surrogate loss function, which we call the SPO+ loss. Most importantly, we prove that the SPO+ loss is statistically consistent with respect to the SPO loss under mild conditions. Our SPO+ loss function can tractably handle any polyhedral, convex, or even mixed-integer optimization problem with a linear objective. Numerical experiments on shortest-path and portfolio-optimization problems show that the SPO framework can lead to significant improvement under the predict-then-optimize paradigm, in particular, when the prediction model being trained is misspecified. We find that linear models trained using SPO+ loss tend to dominate random-forest algorithms, even when the ground truth is highly nonlinear. This paper was accepted by Yinyu Ye, optimization.


Author(s):  
Po Ting Lin ◽  
Wei-Hao Lu ◽  
Shu-Ping Lin

In the past few years, researchers have begun to investigate the existence of arbitrary uncertainties in the design optimization problems. Most traditional reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) methods transform the design space to the standard normal space for reliability analysis but may not work well when the random variables are arbitrarily distributed. It is because that the transformation to the standard normal space cannot be determined or the distribution type is unknown. The methods of Ensemble of Gaussian-based Reliability Analyses (EoGRA) and Ensemble of Gradient-based Transformed Reliability Analyses (EGTRA) have been developed to estimate the joint probability density function using the ensemble of kernel functions. EoGRA performs a series of Gaussian-based kernel reliability analyses and merged them together to compute the reliability of the design point. EGTRA transforms the design space to the single-variate design space toward the constraint gradient, where the kernel reliability analyses become much less costly. In this paper, a series of comprehensive investigations were performed to study the similarities and differences between EoGRA and EGTRA. The results showed that EGTRA performs accurate and effective reliability analyses for both linear and nonlinear problems. When the constraints are highly nonlinear, EGTRA may have little problem but still can be effective in terms of starting from deterministic optimal points. On the other hands, the sensitivity analyses of EoGRA may be ineffective when the random distribution is completely inside the feasible space or infeasible space. However, EoGRA can find acceptable design points when starting from deterministic optimal points. Moreover, EoGRA is capable of delivering estimated failure probability of each constraint during the optimization processes, which may be convenient for some applications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 128 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Blauth ◽  
Christian Leithäuser ◽  
René Pinnau

AbstractWe consider the optimization of a chemical microchannel reactor by means of PDE-constrained optimization techniques, using the example of the Sabatier reaction. To model the chemically reacting flow in the microchannels, we introduce a three- and a one-dimensional model. As these are given by strongly coupled and highly nonlinear systems of partial differential equations (PDEs), we present our software package cashocs which implements the adjoint approach and facilitates the numerical solution of the subsequent optimization problems. We solve a parameter identification problem numerically to determine necessary kinetic parameters for the models from experimental data given in the literature. The obtained results show excellent agreement to the measurements. Finally, we present two optimization problems for optimizing the reactor’s product yield. First, we use a tracking-type cost functional to maximize the reactant conversion, keep the flow rate of the reactor fixed, and use its wall temperature as optimization variable. Second, we consider the wall temperature and the inlet gas velocity as optimization variables, use an objective functional for maximizing the flow rate in the reactor, and ensure the quality of the product by means of a state constraint. The results obtained from solving these problems numerically show great potential for improving the design of the microreactor.


Geophysics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (5) ◽  
pp. R767-R781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattia Aleardi ◽  
Silvio Pierini ◽  
Angelo Sajeva

We have compared the performances of six recently developed global optimization algorithms: imperialist competitive algorithm, firefly algorithm (FA), water cycle algorithm (WCA), whale optimization algorithm (WOA), fireworks algorithm (FWA), and quantum particle swarm optimization (QPSO). These methods have been introduced in the past few years and have found very limited or no applications to geophysical exploration problems thus far. We benchmark the algorithms’ results against the particle swarm optimization (PSO), which is a popular and well-established global search method. In particular, we are interested in assessing the exploration and exploitation capabilities of each method as the dimension of the model space increases. First, we test the different algorithms on two multiminima and two convex analytic objective functions. Then, we compare them using the residual statics corrections and 1D elastic full-waveform inversion, which are highly nonlinear geophysical optimization problems. Our results demonstrate that FA, FWA, and WOA are characterized by optimal exploration capabilities because they outperform the other approaches in the case of optimization problems with multiminima objective functions. Differently, QPSO and PSO have good exploitation capabilities because they easily solve ill-conditioned optimizations characterized by a nearly flat valley in the objective function. QPSO, PSO, and WCA offer a good compromise between exploitation and exploration.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (04) ◽  
pp. 479-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
BIN LIU ◽  
TEQI DUAN ◽  
YONGMING LI

In this paper, a novel genetic algorithm — dynamic ring-like agent genetic algorithm (RAGA) is proposed for solving global numerical optimization problem. The RAGA combines the ring-like agent structure and dynamic neighboring genetic operators together to get better optimization capability. An agent in ring-like agent structure represents a candidate solution to the optimization problem. Any agent interacts with neighboring agents to evolve. With dynamic neighboring genetic operators, they compete and cooperate with their neighbors, and they can also use knowledge to increase energies. Global numerical optimization problems are the most important ones to verify the performance of evolutionary algorithm, especially of genetic algorithm and are mostly of interest to the corresponding researchers. In the corresponding experiments, several complex benchmark functions were used for optimization, several popular GAs were used for comparison. In order to better compare two agents GAs (MAGA: multi-agent genetic algorithm and RAGA), the several dimensional experiments (from low dimension to high dimension) were done. These experimental results show that RAGA not only is suitable for optimization problems, but also has more precise and more stable optimization results.


2012 ◽  
Vol 215-216 ◽  
pp. 133-137
Author(s):  
Guo Shao Su ◽  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Zhen Xing Wu ◽  
Liu Bin Yan

Covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy algorithm (CMA-ES) is a newly evolution algorithm. It has become a powerful tool for solving highly nonlinear multi-peak optimization problems. In many real-world optimization problems, the location of multiple optima is often required in a search space. In order to evaluate the solution, thousands of fitness function evaluations are involved that is a time consuming or expensive processes. Therefore, conventional stochastic optimization methods meet a special challenge for a very large number of problem function evaluations. Aiming to overcome the shortcoming of stochastic optimization methods in the high calculation cost, a truss optimal method based on CMA-ES algorithm is proposed and applied to solve the section and shape optimization problems of trusses. The study results show that the method is feasible and has the advantages of high accuracy, high efficiency and easy implementation.


Author(s):  
S Yoo ◽  
C-G Park ◽  
S-H You ◽  
B Lim

This article presents a new methodology to generate optimal trajectories in controlling an automated excavator. By parameterizing all the actuator displacements with B-splines of the same order and with the same number of control points, the coupled actuator limits, associated with the maximum pump flowrate, are described as the finite-dimensional set of linear constraints to the motion optimization problem. Several weighting functions are introduced on the generalized actuator torque so that the solution to each optimization problems contains the physical meaning. Numerical results showing that the generated motions of the excavator are fairly smooth and effectively save energy, which can prevent mechanical wearing and possibly save fuel consumption, are presented. A typical operator's manoeuvre from experiments is referred to bring out the standing features of the optimized motion.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Yao Peng ◽  
Zepeng Shen ◽  
Shiqi Wang

Multimodal optimization problem exists in multiple global and many local optimal solutions. The difficulty of solving these problems is finding as many local optimal peaks as possible on the premise of ensuring global optimal precision. This article presents adaptive grouping brainstorm optimization (AGBSO) for solving these problems. In this article, adaptive grouping strategy is proposed for achieving adaptive grouping without providing any prior knowledge by users. For enhancing the diversity and accuracy of the optimal algorithm, elite reservation strategy is proposed to put central particles into an elite pool, and peak detection strategy is proposed to delete particles far from optimal peaks in the elite pool. Finally, this article uses testing functions with different dimensions to compare the convergence, accuracy, and diversity of AGBSO with BSO. Experiments verify that AGBSO has great localization ability for local optimal solutions while ensuring the accuracy of the global optimal solutions.


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