A Fast-Converging Particle Swarm Optimization through Targeted, Position-Mutated, Elitism (PSO-TPME)

Abstract We improve convergence speed by two orders of magnitude and the global exploration capabilities of particle swarm optimization (PSO) through targeted position-mutated elitism (TPME). The proposed fast-converging TPME operator requires a fitness-based classification technique to categorize the particles. The introduced classification is motivated by its simplicity, low memory requirements, and automated termination criteria based on convergence. The three key innovations address particle classification, elitism, and mutation in the cognitive and social model. PSO-TPME is benchmarked against five popular PSO variants for multi-dimensional functions, which are extensively adopted in the optimization field, In particular, the convergence accuracy, convergence speed, and the capability to find global minima are investigated. The statistical error is assessed by numerous repetitions. The simulations confirmed that in ten of the thirteen investigated functions, the proposed PSO variant outperforms other variants in terms of convergence rate and accuracy by at least two orders of magnitude. On the other hand, the simulations demonstrated the early exploration capabilities of PSO-TPME in all tested functions. In the first ten iterations, PSO-TPME outperformed all the investigated PSO variants by at least two orders of magnitude.