Small-World Phenomenon for Function
Optimization
Du Haifeng, Zhuang Jian, Zhang Jinhua, Wang Sun'an
(School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China)
Abstract: Inspired by the mechanism of small-world phenomenon, some small-world
optimization operators, mainly including the local short-range searching operator and
random long-range searching operator, were constructed. The optimization was considered as
a process where information transmits from candidate solution to optimal solution in
search space (networks). And a new optimization algorithm, small world optimization
algorithm (SWOA), was explored on the basis of the effective information transmission
mechanism of the small-world phenomenon. Compared with the corresponding genetic
algorithms, the simulated results of some complex functions optimization indicate that
SWOA enables to enhance the diversity of the population with a higher convergence rate and
avoid the prematurity and genetic algorithm deceptive problem to some extent.
Keywords: small-world phenomenon; optimization algorithm; function optimization