Spherical Search Algorithm: A Metaheuristic for Bound-Constrained Optimization

Abstract

This chapter is based on a recently published paper [9] of authors of this chapter in which a method for solving bound-constrained non-linear global optimization problems has been proposed. The algorithm obtains a sphere and then generates new trial solutions on its surface. Hence, this algorithm has been named as Spherical Search (SS) algorithm. This chapter starts with an introduction to the SS algorithm and then discusses different components and steps of the algorithm, viz., initialization of population, the concept of a spherical surface, the procedure of generation of trial solutions, selection of new population using greedy selection, stopping criteria, steps of the algorithm, and space and time complexity of the algorithm. Then, the algorithm has been applied to solve 30 bound-constrained global optimization benchmark problems of IEEE CEC 2014 suite and the results of the spherical search algorithm on these benchmark problems have been compared with the results of variants of well-known algorithms such as particle swarm optimization, genetic algorithm, covariance matrix adapted evolution strategy, and Differential Evolution on these problems to demonstrate its performance. Further, the SS algorithm has been applied to solve a model order reduction problem, an example of a real-life complex optimization problem. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.