An electromagnetism-like mechanism for global optimization

This paper proposes a new heuristic for global optimization. The method utilizes an attraction-repulsion mechanism to move the sample points towards the optimality. The proposed scheme can be used either as a stand-alone approach or as an accompanying procedure for other methods. Some test results on nonlinear test functions in the category of minor to moderate difficulty are included. The ease of implementation and flexibility of the heuristic show the potential of this new approach.