Fractional calculus-based firefly algorithm applied to parameter estimation of chaotic systems

This paper deals with the parameters estimation problem of chaotic systems using firefly algorithm (FA). The main contribution of the present work is to introduce a modified version of FA by incorporating fractional calculus during the search process, namely fractional-order FA (FOFA). FOFA simulates the behavior of each firefly with more historical memory, leading to enhance the performance of the basic FA by controlling its convergence speed. A simple structure and straightforward to implement are the main aspects of the proposed FOFA. First, the capability of FOFA is evaluated on the well-known test functions adopted from CEC'2015. Then, FOFA is applied for parameter estimation of chaotic systems. Results reveal that the incorporation of a memory term into the FA is an extremely significant development in comparison with other types of FAs.