In the commonly used DE/rand/1 variant of differential evolution the primary mechanism of generating new solutions is the perturbation of a randomly selected point by a difference vector. The newly selected point may, if good enough, then replace a solution from the current generation. As the magnitude of difference vectors diminishes as the population converges, the size of moves made also diminishes, an oft-touted and obvious benefit of the approach. Additionally, when the population splits into separate clusters difference vectors exist for both small and large moves. Given that a replaced solution is not the one perturbed to create the new, candidate solution, are the large difference vectors responsible for movement of population members between clusters? This paper examines the mechanisms of small and large moves, finding that small moves within one cluster result in solutions from another being replaced and so appearing to move a large distance. As clusters tighten this is the only mechanism for movement between them.

Item Type:	Refereed Conference Paper
Research Division:	Information and Computing Sciences
Research Group:	Machine learning
Research Field:	Neural networks
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the information and computing sciences
UTAS Author:	Montgomery, J (Dr James Montgomery)
ID Code:	92133
Year Published:	2009
Web of Science® Times Cited:	15
Deposited By:	Information and Communication Technology
Deposited On:	2014-06-06
Last Modified:	2016-01-19
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