Opposition-Based Crossover Operation for Differential Evolution Algorithm
Sevda Ebrahimi, Shahryar Rahnamayan, Azam Asilian Bidgoli · 2023
Differential Evolution (DE) is widely recognized as an effective, robust, and gradient-free global optimization algorithm. However, the DE algorithm's search strategy has certain limitations that present opportunities for further improvement. Opposition-based Learning (OBL) as one of the efficient computational concepts provides the optimizer with the capability of exploring the search space in opposite directions. This research paper introduces a novel crossover scheme for the DE algorithm based on OBL concept. Unlike existing approaches in the literature, which primarily focus on utilization of OBL in population level, proposed scheme takes the advantage of OBL in operation level. In proposed scheme, the crossover operator generates two trial vectors in opposite directions, enhancing the exploration capability of the search strategy and taking a cautious approach by regularly examining the opposite directions during crossover. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a series of experiments are conducted using the CEC-2017 benchmark functions with two different numbers of dimensions: 30 and 50. The results demonstrate a significant improvement in performance of the DE algorithm through the proposed method.