An improved differential evolution algorithm with triangular mutation for global numerical optimization

This paper presents an Improved Differential Evolution (IDE) algorithm for solving global numerical optimization problems over continuous space. The proposed algorithm introduces a new triangular mutation rule based on the convex combination vector of the triplet defined by the three randomly chosen vectors and the difference vector between the best and the worst individuals among the three randomly selected vectors. The mutation rule is combined with the basic mutation strategy through a non-linear decreasing probability rule. Furthermore, a restart mechanism is also proposed to avoid premature convergence. IDE is tested on a well-known set of unconstrained problems and shows its superiority to state-of-the-art differential evolution variants. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.