An improved GA and a novel PSO-GA-based hybrid algorithm

Inspired by the natural features of the variable size of the population, we present a variable population-size genetic algorithm (VPGA) by introducing the dying probability for the individuals and the war/disease process for the population. Based on the VPGA and the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms, a novel PSO-GA-based hybrid algorithm (PGHA) is also proposed in this paper. Simulation results show that both VPGA and PGHA are effective for the optimization problems. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.