Two-stage based ensemble optimization framework for large-scale global optimization

Large-scale global optimization (LSGO) is a very important and challenging task in optimization domain, which is embedded in many scientific and engineering applications. In order to strengthen both effectiveness and efficiency of LSGO algorithm, this paper designs a two-stage based ensemble optimization evolutionary algorithm (EOEA) framework, which serially implements two sub-optimizers. These two sub-optimizers mainly focus on exploration and exploitation separately. The EOEA framework can be easily generated, flexibly altered and modified, according to different implementation conditions. In order to analyze the effects of EOEA’s components, we compare its performance on diverse kinds of problems with its two sub-optimizers and three variants. To show its superiorities over the previous LSGO algorithms, we compare its performance with six classical LSGO algorithms on the LSGO test functions of IEEE Congress of Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2008). The performance of EOEA is further evaluated by experimental comparison with four state-of-the-art LSGO algorithms on the test functions of CEC 2010 LSGO competition. To benchmark the practical applicability of EOEA, we adopt EOEA to the parameter calibration problem of water pipeline system. Based on the experimental results on diverse scales of systems, EOEA performs steadily and robustly.

► A new two-stage based ensemble optimization framework is proposed. ► Motivation of EOEA: efficiency test on diverse kinds of problems to show. ► Experimental comparison between EOEA with classical LSGO algorithms on CEC08 functions. ► Experimental comparison between EOEA with state-of-the-art LSGO algorithms on CEC10 functions. ► Application of EOEA to a real-world task: parameter calibration of water distribution system.