Quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization with collaborative attractors for nonlinear numerical problems

• A new Collaborative Learning Strategy is proposed to generate local attractors.
• The new strategy contains two operators, namely orthogonal operator and comparison operator.
• The two operators cooperate with each other by using a probability parameter.
• The proposed algorithm has been tested on nonlinear numerical problems which are defined in IEEE-CEC 2014.

In this paper, an improved quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (CL-QPSO), which adopts a new collaborative learning strategy to generate local attractors for particles, is proposed to solve nonlinear numerical problems. Local attractors, which directly determine the convergence behavior of particles, play an important role in quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (QPSO). In order to get a promising and efficient local attractor for each particle, a collaborative learning strategy is introduced to generate local attractors in the proposed algorithm. Collaborative learning strategy consists of two operators, namely orthogonal operator and comparison operator. For each particle, orthogonal operator is used to discover the useful information that lies in its personal and global best positions, while comparison operator is used to enhance the particle’s ability of jumping out of local optima. By using a probability parameter, the two operators cooperate with each other to generate local attractors for particles. A comprehensive comparison of CL-QPSO with some state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms on nonlinear numeric optimization functions demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.