Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for Magnetotelluric (MT) 1D Inversion Modeling

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is one of nature-inspired optimization algorithms that adopts swarm (insects, school of fish, flock of birds etc.) behaviour in search for food or common target in a collaborative manner. The particles (or agents) in the swarm learn from their neighbours as well as themselves regarding the promising area in the search space. The information is then used to update their position in order to reach the target. The search algorithm of a particle is dictated by the best position of that particle during the process (individual learning term) and the best particle in its surroundings (social learning term) at a particular iteration. In terms of optimization, the particles are models defined by their parameters, while the promising area in the model space is characterized by a low misfit associated with optimum models. Being a global search approach, PSO is suitable for nonlinear inverse problem resolution. The algorithm was applied to a simple minimization problem for illustration purpose. The application of PSO in geophysical inverse problem is demonstrated by inversion of synthetic magnetotelluric (MT) data associated with simple 1D models with satisfactory results in terms of model recovery as well as data misfit.