Visible to the public Biblio

Filters: Keyword is swarm intelligence  [Clear All Filters]
2019-02-21
Gao, Y..  2018.  An Improved Hybrid Group Intelligent Algorithm Based on Artificial Bee Colony and Particle Swarm Optimization. 2018 International Conference on Virtual Reality and Intelligent Systems (ICVRIS). :160–163.
Aiming at the disadvantage of poor convergence performance of PSO and artificial swarm algorithm, an improved hybrid algorithm is proposed to overcome the shortcomings of complex optimization problems. Through the test of four standard function by hybrid algorithm and compared the result with standard particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm, the convergence rate and convergence precision of the hybrid algorithm are both superior to those of the standard particle swarm algorithm and Artificial Bee Colony algorithm, presenting a better optimal performance.
Bi, Q., Huang, Y..  2018.  A Self-organized Shape Formation Method for Swarm Controlling. 2018 37th Chinese Control Conference (CCC). :7205–7209.
This paper presents a new approach for the shape formation based on the artificial method. It refers to the basic concept in the swarm intelligence: complex behaviors of the swarm can be formed with simple rules designed in the agents. In the framework, the distance image is used to generate not only an attraction field to keep all the agents in the given shape, but also repulsive force field among the agents to make them distribute uniformly. Compared to the traditional methods based on centralized control, the algorithm has properties of distributed and simple computation, convergence and robustness, which is very suitable for the swarm robots in the real world considering the limitation of communication, collision avoidance and calculation problems. We also show that some initial sensitive method can be improved in the similar way. The simulation results prove the proposed approach is suitable for convex. non-convex and line shapes.
Vaishnav, J., Uday, A. B., Poulose, T..  2018.  Pattern Formation in Swarm Robotic Systems. 2018 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI). :1466–1469.
Swarm robotics, a combination of Swarm intelligence and robotics, is inspired from how the nature swarms, such as flock of birds, swarm of bees, ants, fishes etc. These group behaviours show great flexibility and robustness which enable the robots to perform various tasks like pattern formation, rescue and military operation, space expedition etc. This paper discusses an algorithm for forming patterns, which are English alphabets, by identical robots, in a finite amount of time and also analyses outcome of the algorithm. In order to implement the algorithm, 9 identical circular robots of diameter 15 cm are used, each having a Node MCU module and a rotary encoder attached to one wheel of the robot. The robots are initially placed at the centres of an imaginary 3×3 grid, on a white sheet of paper, of dimensions 250cm × 250 cm. All the robots are connected to the laptop's network via wifi and data send from the laptop is received by the Node MCU modules. This data includes the distance to be moved and the angle to be turned by each robot in order to form the letter. The rotary encoders enable the robot to move specific distances and turn specific angles, with high accuracy, by real time feedback. The algorithm is written in Python and image processing is done using OpenCV. Certain approximations are used in order to implement collision avoidance. Finally after calibration, the word given as input, is formed letter by letter, using these 9 identical robots.
Xie, S., Wang, G..  2018.  Optimization of parallel turnings using particle swarm intelligence. 2018 Tenth International Conference on Advanced Computational Intelligence (ICACI). :230–234.
Machining process parameters optimization is of concern in machining fields considering machining cost factor. In order to solve the optimization problem of machining process parameters in parallel turning operations, which aims to reduce the machining cost, two PSO-based optimization approaches are proposed in this paper. According to the divide-and-conquer idea, the problem is divided into some similar sub-problems. A particle swarm optimization then is derived to conquer each sub-problem to find the optimal results. Simulations show that, comparing to other optimization approaches proposed previously, the proposed two PSO-based approaches can get optimal machining parameters to reduce both the machining cost (UC) and the computation time.
2018-05-02
Toriyama, Naoki, Ono, Keiko, Orito, Yukiko.  2017.  Empirical Analysis of Volatility Forecasting Model Based on Genetic Programming. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Intelligent Systems, Metaheuristics & Swarm Intelligence. :74–77.
In financial markets, the variance of stock returns plays an important role to reduce a risk, and daily volatility is often used as one of its measurement. We in this paper focus on Realized Volatility (RV), which is one of the most well-known volatility index. Traditionally regression models have been widely used to estimate it, but Genetic Programming (GP) approaches have been proposed recent years. While regression models estimate a suitable equation for forecasting RV, GP approaches estimate a tree (individual) that consists of economic information. Through evolution process, effective economic information can survive, so GP approaches can not only estimate RV values, but also extract effective information. However, GP approaches need computational efforts to avoid premature convergence. In this paper, we proposed a mutation-base GP approach for RV estimation, and analyze which economic information is needed to estimate RV accurately.
Tsuboi, Kazuaki, Suga, Satoshi, Kurihara, Satoshi.  2017.  Hierarchical Pattern Mining Based on Swarm Intelligence. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion. :47–48.
The behavior patterns in everyday life such as home, office, and commuting, and buying behavior model by day of the week, sea-son, location have hierarchies of various temporal granularity. Generally, in usual hierarchical data analysis, a basic hierarchical structure is given in advance. But it is difficult to estimate hierarchical structure beforehand for complex data. Therefore, in this study, we propose the algorithm to automatically extract both hierarchical structure and pattern from time series data using swarm intelligent method. We performed the initial operation test and confirmed that patterns can be extracted hierarchically.
Sidler, Michael, von Rohr, Christian Rudolf, Dornberger, Rolf, Hanne, Thomas.  2017.  Emotion Influenced Robotic Path Planning. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Intelligent Systems, Metaheuristics & Swarm Intelligence. :130–136.
We introduce an emotion influenced robotic path planning solution which offers the possibility of enabling emotions in the robot. The robot can change the speed of the path or learn where it should be and where it should not be. Most existing solutions for robotic path planning have no emotional influences. The most successful emotions were taken and included into the solution of this paper. The results were analyzed with regard to the time and speed it takes for a normal robotic path planning without emotions and with emotions of happiness, fear and novelty.
Sharma, Mudita, Kazakov, Dimitar.  2017.  Hybridisation of Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm on Four Classes of Real-valued Optimisation Functions. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion. :1439–1442.
Hybridisation of algorithms in evolutionary computation (EC) has been used by researchers to overcome drawbacks of population-based algorithms. The introduced algorithm called mutated Artificial Bee Colony algorithm, is a novel variant of standard Artificial Bee Colony algorithm (ABC) which successfully moves out of local optima. First, new parameters are found and tuned in ABC algorithm. Second, the mutation operator is employed which is responsible for bringing diversity into solution. Third, to avoid tuning 'limit' parameter and prevent abandoning good solutions, it is replaced by average fitness comparison of worst employed bee. Thus, proposed algorithm gives the global solution thus improving the exploration capability of ABC. The proposed algorithm is tested on four classes of problems. The results are compared with six other population-based algorithms, namely Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimsation (PSO), Differential Evolution (DE), standard Artificial Bee Colony algorithm (ABC) and its two variants- quick Artificial Bee Colony algorithm (qABC) and adaptive Artificial Bee Colony algorithm (aABC). Overall results show that mutated ABC is at par with aABC and better than above-mentioned algorithms. The novel algorithm is best suited to 3 of the 4 classes of functions under consideration. Functions belonging to UN class have shown near optimal solution.
Lin, Frank Po-Chen, Phoa, Frederick Kin Hing.  2017.  A Performance Study of Parallel Programming via CPU and GPU on Swarm Intelligence Based Evolutionary Algorithm. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Intelligent Systems, Metaheuristics & Swarm Intelligence. :1–5.
Algorithm parallelization diversifies a complicated computing task into small parts, and thus it receives wide attention when it is implemented to evolutionary algorithms (EA). This works considers a recently developed EA called the Swarm Intelligence Based (SIB) method as a benchmark to compare the performance of two types of parallel computing approaches: a CPU-based approach via OpenMP and a GPU-based approach via CUDA. The experiments are conducted to solve an optimization problem in the search of supersaturated designs via the SIB method. Unlike conventional suggestions, we show that the CPU-based OpenMP outperforms CUDA at the execution time. At the end of this paper, we provide several potential problems in GPU parallel computing towards EA and suggest to use CPU-based OpenMP for parallel computing of EA.
Clifford, J., Garfield, K., Towhidnejad, M., Neighbors, J., Miller, M., Verenich, E., Staskevich, G..  2017.  Multi-layer model of swarm intelligence for resilient autonomous systems. 2017 IEEE/AIAA 36th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC). :1–4.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) is working with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to develop a distributed multi-layer autonomous UAS planning and control technology for gathering intelligence in Anti-Access Area Denial (A2/AD) environments populated by intelligent adaptive adversaries. These resilient autonomous systems are able to navigate through hostile environments while performing Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) tasks, and minimizing the loss of assets. Our approach incorporates artificial life concepts, with a high-level architecture divided into three biologically inspired layers: cyber-physical, reactive, and deliberative. Each layer has a dynamic level of influence over the behavior of the agent. Algorithms within the layers act on a filtered view of reality, abstracted in the layer immediately below. Each layer takes input from the layer below, provides output to the layer above, and provides direction to the layer below. Fast-reactive control systems in lower layers ensure a stable environment supporting cognitive function on higher layers. The cyber-physical layer represents the central nervous system of the individual, consisting of elements of the vehicle that cannot be changed such as sensors, power plant, and physical configuration. On the reactive layer, the system uses an artificial life paradigm, where each agent interacts with the environment using a set of simple rules regarding wants and needs. Information is communicated explicitly via message passing and implicitly via observation and recognition of behavior. In the deliberative layer, individual agents look outward to the group, deliberating on efficient resource management and cooperation with other agents. Strategies at all layers are developed using machine learning techniques such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) or NN applied to system training that takes place prior to the mission.

Rjoub, G., Bentahar, J..  2017.  Cloud Task Scheduling Based on Swarm Intelligence and Machine Learning. 2017 IEEE 5th International Conference on Future Internet of Things and Cloud (FiCloud). :272–279.

Cloud computing is the expansion of parallel computing, distributed computing. The technology of cloud computing becomes more and more widely used, and one of the fundamental issues in this cloud environment is related to task scheduling. However, scheduling in Cloud environments represents a difficult issue since it is basically NP-complete. Thus, many variants based on approximation techniques, especially those inspired by Swarm Intelligence (SI) have been proposed. This paper proposes a machine learning algorithm to guide the cloud choose the scheduling technique by using multi criteria decision to optimize the performance. The main contribution of our work is to minimize the makespan of a given task set. The new strategy is simulated using the CloudSim toolkit package where the impact of the algorithm is checked with different numbers of VMs varying from 2 to 50, and different task sizes between 30 bytes and 2700 bytes. Experiment results show that the proposed algorithm minimizes the execution time and the makespan between 7% and 75%, and improves the performance of the load balancing scheduling.

Li, F., Jiang, M., Zhang, Z..  2017.  An adaptive sparse representation model by block dictionary and swarm intelligence. 2017 2nd IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Applications (ICCIA). :200–203.

The pattern recognition in the sparse representation (SR) framework has been very successful. In this model, the test sample can be represented as a sparse linear combination of training samples by solving a norm-regularized least squares problem. However, the value of regularization parameter is always indiscriminating for the whole dictionary. To enhance the group concentration of the coefficients and also to improve the sparsity, we propose a new SR model called adaptive sparse representation classifier(ASRC). In ASRC, a sparse coefficient strengthened item is added in the objective function. The model is solved by the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm with variable step to speed up the convergence. Also, a partition strategy for large scale dictionary is adopted to lighten bee's load and removes the irrelevant groups. Through different data sets, we empirically demonstrate the property of the new model and its recognition performance.

Shanthi, D., Mohanty, R. K., Narsimha, G., Aruna, V..  2017.  Application of partical swarm intelligence technique to predict software reliability. 2017 International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Control Systems (ICICCS). :629–635.

Predict software program reliability turns into a completely huge trouble in these days. Ordinary many new software programs are introducing inside the marketplace and some of them dealing with failures as their usage/managing is very hard. and plenty of shrewd strategies are already used to are expecting software program reliability. In this paper we're giving a sensible knowledge and the difference among those techniques with my new method. As a result, the prediction fashions constructed on one dataset display a extensive decrease in their accuracy when they are used with new statistics. The aim of this assessment, SE issues which can be of sensible importance are software development/cost estimation, software program reliability prediction, and so forth, and also computing its broaden computational equipment with enhanced power, scalability, flexibility and that can engage more successfully with human beings.

Jian, R., Chen, Y., Cheng, Y., Zhao, Y..  2017.  Millimeter Wave Microstrip Antenna Design Based on Swarm Intelligence Algorithm in 5G. 2017 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps). :1–6.

In order to solve the problem of millimeter wave (mm-wave) antenna impedance mismatch in 5G communication system, a optimization algorithm for Particle Swarm Ant Colony Optimization (PSACO) is proposed to optimize antenna patch parameter. It is proved that the proposed method can effectively achieve impedance matching in 28GHz center frequency, and the return loss characteristic is obviously improved. At the same time, the nonlinear regression model is used to solve the nonlinear relationship between the resonant frequency and the patch parameters. The Elman Neural Network (Elman NN) model is used to verify the reliability of PSACO and nonlinear regression model. Patch parameters optimized by PSACO were introduced into the nonlinear relationship, which obtained error within 2%. The method proposed in this paper improved efficiency in antenna design.

Menezes, B. A. M., Wrede, F., Kuchen, H., Neto, F. B. de Lima.  2017.  Parameter selection for swarm intelligence algorithms \#x2014; Case study on parallel implementation of FSS. 2017 IEEE Latin American Conference on Computational Intelligence (LA-CCI). :1–6.

Swarm Intelligence (SI) algorithms, such as Fish School Search (FSS), are well known as useful tools that can be used to achieve a good solution in a reasonable amount of time for complex optimization problems. And when problems increase in size and complexity, some increase in population size or number of iterations might be needed in order to achieve a good solution. In extreme cases, the execution time can be huge and other approaches, such as parallel implementations, might help to reduce it. This paper investigates the relation and trade off involving these three aspects in SI algorithms, namely population size, number of iterations, and problem complexity. The results with a parallel implementations of FSS show that increasing the population size is beneficial for finding good solutions. However, we observed an asymptotic behavior of the results, i.e. increasing the population over a certain threshold only leads to slight improvements.

Tan, R. K., Bora, Ş.  2017.  Parameter tuning in modeling and simulations by using swarm intelligence optimization algorithms. 2017 9th International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communication Networks (CICN). :148–152.

Modeling and simulation of real-world environments has in recent times being widely used. The modeling of environments whose examination in particular is difficult and the examination via the model becomes easier. The parameters of the modeled systems and the values they can obtain are quite large, and manual tuning is tedious and requires a lot of effort while it often it is almost impossible to get the desired results. For this reason, there is a need for the parameter space to be set. The studies conducted in recent years were reviewed, it has been observed that there are few studies for parameter tuning problem in modeling and simulations. In this study, work has been done for a solution to be found to the problem of parameter tuning with swarm intelligence optimization algorithms Particle swarm optimization and Firefly algorithms. The performance of these algorithms in the parameter tuning process has been tested on 2 different agent based model studies. The performance of the algorithms has been observed by manually entering the parameters found for the model. According to the obtained results, it has been seen that the Firefly algorithm where the Particle swarm optimization algorithm works faster has better parameter values. With this study, the parameter tuning problem of the models in the different fields were solved.

2018-02-02
Akram, R. N., Markantonakis, K., Mayes, K., Habachi, O., Sauveron, D., Steyven, A., Chaumette, S..  2017.  Security, privacy and safety evaluation of dynamic and static fleets of drones. 2017 IEEE/AIAA 36th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC). :1–12.

Interconnected everyday objects, either via public or private networks, are gradually becoming reality in modern life - often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT) or Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). One stand-out example are those systems based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Fleets of such vehicles (drones) are prophesied to assume multiple roles from mundane to high-sensitive applications, such as prompt pizza or shopping deliveries to the home, or to deployment on battlefields for battlefield and combat missions. Drones, which we refer to as UAVs in this paper, can operate either individually (solo missions) or as part of a fleet (group missions), with and without constant connection with a base station. The base station acts as the command centre to manage the drones' activities; however, an independent, localised and effective fleet control is necessary, potentially based on swarm intelligence, for several reasons: 1) an increase in the number of drone fleets; 2) fleet size might reach tens of UAVs; 3) making time-critical decisions by such fleets in the wild; 4) potential communication congestion and latency; and 5) in some cases, working in challenging terrains that hinders or mandates limited communication with a control centre, e.g. operations spanning long period of times or military usage of fleets in enemy territory. This self-aware, mission-focused and independent fleet of drones may utilise swarm intelligence for a), air-traffic or flight control management, b) obstacle avoidance, c) self-preservation (while maintaining the mission criteria), d) autonomous collaboration with other fleets in the wild, and e) assuring the security, privacy and safety of physical (drones itself) and virtual (data, software) assets. In this paper, we investigate the challenges faced by fleet of drones and propose a potential course of action on how to overcome them.

2017-11-20
Liu, Junbin, Sridharan, Sridha, Fookes, Clinton.  2016.  Recent Advances in Camera Planning for Large Area Surveillance: A Comprehensive Review. ACM Comput. Surv.. 49:6:1–6:37.

With recent advances in consumer electronics and the increasingly urgent need for public security, camera networks have evolved from their early role of providing simple and static monitoring to current complex systems capable of obtaining extensive video information for intelligent processing, such as target localization, identification, and tracking. In all cases, it is of vital importance that the optimal camera configuration (i.e., optimal location, orientation, etc.) is determined before cameras are deployed as a suboptimal placement solution will adversely affect intelligent video surveillance and video analytic algorithms. The optimal configuration may also provide substantial savings on the total number of cameras required to achieve the same level of utility. In this article, we examine most, if not all, of the recent approaches (post 2000) addressing camera placement in a structured manner. We believe that our work can serve as a first point of entry for readers wishing to start researching into this area or engineers who need to design a camera system in practice. To this end, we attempt to provide a complete study of relevant formulation strategies and brief introductions to most commonly used optimization techniques by researchers in this field. We hope our work to be inspirational to spark new ideas in the field.

2017-08-18
Zapotecas-Martinez, Saul, Moraglio, Alberto, Aguirre, Hernan E., Tanaka, Kiyoshi.  2016.  Geometric Particle Swarm Optimization for Multi-objective Optimization Using Decomposition. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2016. :69–76.

Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) based on decomposition are aggregation-based algorithms which transform a multi-objective optimization problem (MOP) into several single-objective subproblems. Being effective, efficient, and easy to implement, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has become one of the most popular single-objective optimizers for continuous problems, and recently it has been successfully extended to the multi-objective domain. However, no investigation on the application of PSO within a multi-objective decomposition framework exists in the context of combinatorial optimization. This is precisely the focus of the paper. More specifically, we study the incorporation of Geometric Particle Swarm Optimization (GPSO), a discrete generalization of PSO that has proven successful on a number of single-objective combinatorial problems, into a decomposition approach. We conduct experiments on many-objective 1/0 knapsack problems i.e. problems with more than three objectives functions, substantially harder than multi-objective problems with fewer objectives. The results indicate that the proposed multi-objective GPSO based on decomposition is able to outperform two version of the well-know MOEA based on decomposition (MOEA/D) and the most recent version of the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-III), which are state-of-the-art multi-objec\textbackslash-tive evolutionary approaches based on decomposition.

Kheng, Cheng Wai, Ku, Day Chyi, Ng, Hui Fuang, Khattab, Mahmoud, Chong, Siang Yew.  2016.  Curvature Flight Path for Particle Swarm Optimisation. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2016. :29–36.

An optimisation is a process of finding maxima or minima of the objective function. Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) is a nature-inspired, meta-heuristic, black box optimisation algorithm used to search for global minimum or maximum in the solution space. The sampling strategy in this algorithm mimics the flying pattern of a swarm, where each sample is generated randomly according to uniform distribution among three different locations, which marks the current particle location, the individual best found location, and the best found location for the entire swam over all generation. The PSO has known disadvantage of premature convergence in problems with high correlated design variables (high epistatis). However, there is limited research conducted in finding the main reason why the algorithm fails to locate better solutions in these problems. In this paper, we propose to change the traditional triangular flight trajectory of PSO to an elliptical flight path. The new flying method is tested and compared with the traditional triangular flight trajectory of PSO on five high epistatis benchmark problems. Our results show that the samples generated from the elliptical flight path are generally better than the traditional triangular flight trajectory of PSO in term of average fitness and the fitness of best found solution.

Strasser, Shane, Goodman, Rollie, Sheppard, John, Butcher, Stephyn.  2016.  A New Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2016. :53–60.

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has been shown to perform very well on a wide range of optimization problems. One of the drawbacks to PSO is that the base algorithm assumes continuous variables. In this paper, we present a version of PSO that is able to optimize over discrete variables. This new PSO algorithm, which we call Integer and Categorical PSO (ICPSO), incorporates ideas from Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs) in that particles represent probability distributions rather than solution values, and the PSO update modifies the probability distributions. In this paper, we describe our new algorithm and compare its performance against other discrete PSO algorithms. In our experiments, we demonstrate that our algorithm outperforms comparable methods on both discrete benchmark functions and NK landscapes, a mathematical framework that generates tunable fitness landscapes for evaluating EAs.

Clark, Ruaridh, Punzo, Giuliano, Baumanis, Kristaps, Macdonald, Malcolm.  2016.  Consensus Speed Maximisation in Engineered Swarms with Autocratic Leaders. Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and the International Conference on Automation, Control and Robotics Engineering. :8:1–8:5.

Control of a large engineered swarm can be achieved by influencing key agents within the swarm. The swarm can rely on its communication network to spread the external perturbation and transition to a new state when all agents reach a consensus. Maximising this consensus speed is a vital design parameter when fast response is desirable. The systems analysed consist of N interacting agents that have the same number of outward, observing, connections that follow k-nearest neighbour rules and are represented by a directed graph Laplacian. The spectral properties of this graph are exploited to identify leaders with a newly presented semi-analytical approach referred to as the Leaders of Influence (LoI) method. This method is demonstrated on k-NNR graphs for a set number of leaders. These methods are compared with a genetic algorithm and are shown to be efficient and effective at leader identification. A focus of this work is the effect of leadership style on consensus speed where an autocratic approach (leaders that are not influenced by other nodes in the graph) is shown to always produce faster consensus than a democratic leadership model.

Narjess, Dali, Sadok, Bouamama.  2016.  A New Hybrid GPU-PSO Approach for Solving Max-CSPs. Proceedings of the 2016 on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion. :119–120.

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been considered as a very efficient swarm intelligence technique used to solve many problems, such as those related to Constraint reasoning in particular Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). In this paper, we introduce a new PSO method for solving Maximal Satisfaction Problems Max-CSPs, which belong to CSPs extensions. Our approach is based on a combination between two concepts: double guidance by both template concept and min-conflict heuristic, and the Triggered mutation proposed by Zhou and Tan. This new proposed approach avoids premature stagnation process in order to improve Max-CSPs solution quality. We resort to the high parallel computing insofar as it has shown high performances in several fields, using GPU architecture as a parallel computing framework. The experimental results, presented at the end, show the efficiency of the introduced technique in the resolution of large size Max-CSPs.

Fernández, Silvino, Valledor, Pablo, Diaz, Diego, Malatsetxebarria, Eneko, Iglesias, Miguel.  2016.  Criticality of Response Time in the Usage of Metaheuristics in Industry. Proceedings of the 2016 on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion. :937–940.

Metaheuristics include a wide range of optimization algorithms. Some of them are very well known and with proven value, as they solve successfully many examples of combinatorial NP-hard problems. Some examples of Metaheuristics are Genetic Algorithms (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA) or Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). Our company is devoted to making steel and is the biggest steelmaker in the world. Combining several industrial processes to produce 84.6 million tones (public official data of 2015) involves huge effort. Metaheuristics are applied to different scenarios inside our operations to optimize different areas: logistics, production scheduling or resource assignment, saving costs and helping to reach operational excellence, critical for our survival in a globalized world. Rather than obtaining the global optimal solution, the main interest of an industrial company is to have "good solutions", close to the optimal, but within a very short response time, and this latter requirement is the main difference with respect to the traditional research approach from the academic world. Production is continuous and it cannot be stopped or wait for calculations, in addition, reducing production speed implies decreasing productivity and making the facilities less competitive. Disruptions are common events, making rescheduling imperative while foremen wait for new instructions to operate. This position paper explains the problem of the time response in our industrial environment, the solutions we have investigated and some results already achieved.

Tuba, Eva, Tuba, Milan, Simian, Dana.  2016.  Range Based Wireless Sensor Node Localization Using Bat Algorithm. Proceedings of the 13th ACM Symposium on Performance Evaluation of Wireless Ad Hoc, Sensor, & Ubiquitous Networks. :41–44.

For most wireless sensor networks applications it is necessary to know the locations of all sensor nodes. Since sensor nodes are usually cheap, it is impossible to equip them all with GPS devices, hence the localization process depends on few static or mobile anchor nodes with GPS devices. Range based localization methods use estimated distance between sensor and anchor nodes where the quality of estimation usually depends on the distance and angle of arrival. Localization based on such noisy data represents a hard optimization problem for which swarm intelligence algorithms have been successfully used. In this paper we propose a range based localization algorithm that uses recently developed bat algorithm. The two stage localization algorithm uses four semi-mobile anchors that are at first located at the corners of the area where sensors are deployed and after that the anchors move to their optimal positions with minimal distances to sensor nodes, but with maximal viewing angles. Our proposed algorithm is even at the first stage superior to other approaches from literature in minimizing the error between real and estimated sensor node positions and it is additionally improved at the second stage.