Abstract
In this paper we deal with the convergence properties of the differential evolution (DE) algorithm, a rather popular stochastic method for solving global optimization problems. We are going to show there exist instances for which the basic version of DE has a positive probability not to converge (stagnation might occur), or converges to a single point which is not a local minimizer of the objective function, even when the objective function is convex. Next, some minimal corrections of the basic DE scheme are suggested in order to recover convergence with probability one to a local minimizer at least in the case of strictly convex functions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ali, M.: Differential evolution with preferential crossover. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 181, 1137–1147 (2007)
Braak, C.T.: A Markov Chain Monte Carlo version of the genetic algorithm differential evolution: easy bayesian computing for real parameter spaces. Stat. Comput. 16, 239–249 (2006)
Chakraborty, U.K. (ed.): Advances in Differential Evolution. Springer, Berlin (2008)
Das, S., Suganthan, P.: Differential evolution: a survey of the state-of-the-art. IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput. 15, 4–31 (2011)
Kolda, T., Lewis, R., Torczon, V.: Optimization by direct search: new perspectives on some classical and modern methods. SIAM Rev. 45, 385–482 (2003)
Lampinen, J., Zelinka, I.: On stagnation of the differential evolution algorithm. In: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on soft computing MENDEL, pp. 76–83. Brno, Czech Republic (2000)
Price, K., Storn, R., Lampinen, J.: Differential Evolution. A Practical Approach to Global Optimization. Springer, Berlin (2005)
Rudolph, G.: Convergence of evolutionary algorithms in general search space. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference On Evolutionary Computation. Nagoya, Japan (1996)
Storn, R., Price, K.: Differential evolution—a simple and efficient heuristic for global optimization over continuous spaces. J. Glob. Optim. 11, 341–359 (1997)
Storn, R., Price, K.V.: Differential evolution: a simple and efficient adaptive scheme for global optimization over continuous spaces (TR-95-012). ICSI, USA (1995)
Torczon, V.: On the convergence of pattern search algorithms. SIAM J. Optim. 7, 1–25 (1997)
Vasile, M., Minisci, E., Locatelli, M.: An inflationary differential evolution algorithm for space trajectory optimization. IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput. 15, 267–281 (2011)
Zaharie, D.: Critical values for control parameters of differential evolution algorithm. In: Proceedings of 8th international conference on soft computing, mendel 2002, pp. 62–67 (2002)
Zhigljavsky, A., Žilinskas, A.: Stochastic Global Optimization. Springer, Berlin (2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Locatelli, M., Vasile, M. (Non) convergence results for the differential evolution method. Optim Lett 9, 413–425 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-014-0816-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-014-0816-9