Quantum inspired Evolutionary Algorithms were proposed more than a decade ago and have been employed for solving a wide range of difficult search and optimization problems. A number of changes have been proposed to improve performance of canonical QEA. However, canonical QEA is one of the few evolutionary algorithms, which uses a search operator with relatively large number of parameters. It is well known that performance of evolutionary algorithms is dependent on specific value of parameters for a given problem. The advantage of having large number of parameters in an operator is that the search process can be made more powerful even with a single operator without requiring a combination of other operators for exploration and exploitation. However, the tuning of operators with large number of parameters is complex and computationally expensive. This paper proposes a novel heuristic method for tuning parameters of canonical QEA. The tuned QEA outperforms canonical QEA on a class of discrete combinatorial optimization problems which, validates the design of the proposed parameter tuning framework. The proposed framework can be used for tuning other algorithms with both large and small number of tunable parameters.
Quantum inspired Evolutionary Algorithms were proposed more than a decade ago and have been employed for solving a wide range of difficult search and optimization problems. A number of changes have been proposed to improve performance of canonical QEA. However, canonical QEA is one of the few evolutionary algorithms, which uses a search operator with relatively large number of parameters. It is well known that performance of evolutionary algorithms is dependent on specific value of parameters for a given problem. The advantage of having large number of parameters in an operator is that the search process can be made more powerful even with a single operator without requiring a combination of other operators for exploration and exploitation. However, the tuning of operators with large number of parameters is complex and computationally expensive. This paper proposes a novel heuristic method for tuning parameters of canonical QEA. The tuned QEA outperforms canonical QEA on a class of discrete combinatorial optimization problems which, validates the design of the proposed parameter tuning framework. The proposed framework can be used for tuning other algorithms with both large and small number of tunable parameters.
In this paper, we propose a novel quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm, called NQEA, for solving combinatorial optimization problems. NQEA uses a new Q-bit update operator to increase the balance between the exploration and exploitation of the search space. In the operator, first, the Q-bits of each individual in the population are updated based on the personal best measurement of that individual and the best measurement of current generation. Then, a restriction is applied to each Q-bit to prevent the premature convergence of its values. The results of experiments on the 0-1 knapsack and NK-landscapes problems show that NQEA performs better than a classical genetic algorithm, CGA, and two quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithms, QEA and vQEA, in terms of convergence speed and accuracy.
From recent research on combinatorial optimization of the knapsack problem, quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA) was proved to be better than conventional genetic algorithms. To improve the performance of the QEA, this paper proposes research issues on QEA such as a termination criterion, a Q-gate, and a two-phase scheme, for a class of numerical and combinatorial optimization problems. A new termination criterion is proposed which gives a clearer meaning on the convergence of Q-bit individuals. A novel variation operator H/sub /spl epsi// gate, which is a modified version of the rotation gate, is proposed along with a two-phase QEA scheme based on the analysis of the effect of changing the initial conditions of Q-bits of the Q-bit individual in the first phase. To demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the updated QEA, several experiments are carried out on a class of numerical and combinatorial optimization problems. The results show that the updated QEA makes QEA more powerful than the previous QEA in terms of convergence speed, fitness, and robustness.
Quantum-Inspired Evolutionary Algorithm (QEA), a type of stochastic algorithm for solving combinatorial optimization problems, is evolutionary computation using quantum bits and superposition states in quantum computation. Although coarse-grained parallel, QEA has many parameters that must be adjusted manually. The simpler algorithm, Quantum-inspired Evolutionary Computation with Pair Swap operator (QEAPS), the authors propose involves just one population and a simple genetic operation exchanging best solution information between two individuals chosen randomly, instead of the migration operation used in QEA, and thereby fewer parameters to be adjusted. The authors found in experiments that QEAPS finds highly qualified solutions, is more robust against constraint handling, and has a higher search performance of thanks to diversified best solution information.
This paper proposes a novel evolutionary algorithm inspired by quantum computing, called a quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA), which is based on the concept and principles of quantum computing, such as a quantum bit and superposition of states. Like other evolutionary algorithms, QEA is also characterized by the representation of the individual, evaluation function, and population dynamics. However, instead of binary, numeric, or symbolic representation, QEA uses a Q-bit, defined as the smallest unit of information, for the probabilistic representation and a Q-bit individual as a string of Q-bits. A Q-gate is introduced as a variation operator to drive the individuals toward better solutions. To demonstrate its effectiveness and applicability, experiments were carried out on the knapsack problem, which is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem. The results show that QEA performs well, even with a small population, without premature convergence as compared to the conventional genetic algorithm.
In this paper, some guidelines for setting the parameters of quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA) are presented. QEA is based on the concept and principles of quantum computing, such as a quantum bit and superposition of states. However, QEA is not a quantum algorithm, but a novel evolutionary algorithm. Like other evolutionary algorithms, QEA is also characterized by the representation of the individual, the evaluation function, and the population dynamics. From recent research on the knapsack problem, the results of QEA are better than those of CGA (conventional GA). Although the performance of QEA is excellent, there is relatively little or no research on the effects of different settings for its parameters. This paper describes some guidelines for setting these parameters. The guidelines are drawn up based on extensive experiments carried out for a class of combinatorial and numerical optimization problems. Through the guidelines, the performance of QEA can be maximized.
Differential evolution (DE) is a population based evolutionary algorithm widely used for solving multidimensional global optimization problems over continuous spaces. However, the design of its operators makes it unsuitable for many real-life constrained combinatorial optimization problems which operate on binary space. On the other hand, the quantum inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA) is very well suitable for handling such problems by applying several quantum computing techniques such as Q-bit representation and rotation gate operator, etc. This paper extends the concept of differential operators with adaptive parameter control to the quantum paradigm and proposes the adaptive quantum-inspired differential evolution algorithm (AQDE). The performance of AQDE is found to be significantly superior as compared to QEA and a discrete version of DE on the standard 0–1 knapsack problem for all the considered test cases.