Socio-cognitive Optimization of Time-delay Control
Problems using Evolutionary Metaheuristics
Piotr Kipi´
nski, Hubert Guzowski, Aleksandra Urba´
nczyk, Maciej Smołka,
Marek Kisiel-Dorohinicki and Aleksander Byrski
Institute of Computer Science,AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland
{kipinski,guzowski}@student.agh.edu.pl, {aurbanczyk,smolka,doroh,olekb}@agh.edu.pl
Zuzana Kominkova Oplatkova, Roman Senkerik, Libor Pekar, Radek Matusu, Frantisek Gazdos
Faculty of Applied Informatics,Tomas Bata University in Zl´
ın, Czech Republic
{oplatkova,senkerik,pekar,rmatusu,gazdos}@utb.cz
Abstract—Metaheuristics are universal optimization algo-
rithms which should be used for solving difficult problems,
unsolvable by classic approaches. In this paper we aim at
constructing novel socio-cognitive metaheuristic based on castes,
and apply several versions of this algorithm to optimization of
time-delay system model. Besides giving the background and the
details of the proposed algorithms we apply them to optimization
of selected variants of the problem and discuss the results.
Index Terms—hybrid metaheuristics, evolutionary computing,
socio-cognitive computing
I. INTRODUCTION
Evolutionary metaheuristics proved to be universal global
optimization algorithms. This claim is supported not only
by textbooks and experimental research (e.g. [1], [2]) but
also by extensive theoretical works (e.g. [3]) showing such
algorithms as not only efficient and efficacious algorithms, but
also easy-to-understand nature-inspired algorithms stemming
from Darwin and of course Holland works [4].
Following works of Talbi [5] and considering famous No
free lunch theorem [6], we are convinced it is beneficial to
seek new algorithms which may be applicable to different
new problems better than other ones. For example solving
transport problems with Ant Colony Optimization may be as
good as with Evolutionary Algorithms, however it is much
more natural because of the inherent structure of the ACO
(representation in a form of pheromone table is more feasible
for transport problems than the genotype-based one).
Providing we do not forget about seminal work of Sorensen
[7], we can propose novel hybrid algorithms and explore their
applicability to different problems. In this paper we focus on
time-delay systems, a problem stemming from the area of
automatics (cf. e.g. [8]), applying evolutionary algorithm for
solving the task of optimizing its parameters, comparing the
results with a recently proposed hybrid evolutionary algorithm,
constructed based on psychological inspirations.
Socio-cognitive algorithms [9] are inspired by the works
of Albert Bandura, a famous Canadian/US psychologist, in
The research presented in this paper was partially supported by: NCN
project no: 2020/39/I/ST7/02285, NCN project: no:2019/35/O/ST6/00570,
Polish Ministry of Education and Science funds assigned to AGH University
of Science and Technology.
particular on his theory of social-cognitive learning, assuming
that we not only learn from our experiences, but we also ob-
serve others. Thus incorporating different methods of getting
inspired by parts of populations of evolutionary algorithms
(e.g. copying in a different way elements of the solutions of
the other parts) lead us to propose different socio-cognitive
hybrid algorithms, in this work we focus on an idea of a
caste-based algorithm, which may be perceived as a concept
related somehow to a parallel evolutionary algorithm [10], with
,,overlapping” islands.
In this paper presents, we focus first on a short review of
evolutionary and hybrid metaheuristics related to this research,
then we present the psychological inspirations leading to
socio-cognitive hybrids, then we show the definition of the
problem being solved and the idea of the proposed algorithm,
finally we show the experimental results and conclude the
paper.
II. METAHEURISTICS INSPIRED BY EVOLUTION
A variety of methods can be employed for solving para-
metric optimization problems. One of the classic approaches
is to traverse downhill the cost functions landscape in it-
erative steps. This can be achieved by calculating the cost
functions local gradient and choosing the next calculation
point accordingly. This approach is implemented among others
by the conjugate gradient method, BFGS algorithm, and its
variant L-BFGS-B [11]. However, when the function values
are uncertain, subject to noise, or otherwise non-smooth, the
derivative-free algorithms have to be used. One of the best
known among them is the Nelder Mead method which utilizes
comparisons of values at vertices of a simplex [12].
Methods based on downhill traversal can yield a good re-
duction in cost function value using a relatively small amount
of evaluations but have limited ability to explore multiple
local optimas. Therefore more complex problems that can be
highly multimodal require using so-called global optimization
methods. Those methods use varied stochastic operations to
achieve a better exploration of the functions landscape. Some
of the most popular among those methods are swarm and
evolutionary algorithms.
arXiv:2210.12872v1 [cs.NE] 23 Oct 2022