Performance of a Hybrid EA-DE-Memetic
Algorithm on CEC 2011 Real World Optimization
Problems
Hemant Kumar Singh
School of Engineering and IT
University of New South Wales
Australian Defence Force Academy
ACT 2601, Canberra, Australia
Telephone: +61 2 626 88479
Email: h.singh@adfa.edu.au
Abstract—Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs), in their traditional
form or in combination as in Memetic Algorithms (MAs), have
been quite successful in solving a variety of optimization prob-
lems in the past. More recently, several excellent Differential
Evolution (DE) based algorithms have been proposed which
have had outstanding success in IEEE Congress on Evolutionary
Computation (CEC) competition problems. Inspired by previ-
ous studies, we propose an algorithm combining the strengths
of EA, DE and MA in this paper. The algorithm utilizes a
population of random solutions to start with and generates
a child population either through EA or DE based evolution
with equal probability. Local search is then performed from
one of the solutions in the population for further improvement
objective value. To avoid stagnation, re-initialization of the
population is performed whenever the local search is unable
to improve the values consecutively for a prescribed number
of generations. The performance of the proposed algorithm is
presented in this paper for the newly introduced real world
optimization problems for CEC 2011 competition.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Optimization forms an indispensable component of a num-
ber of real world problems, including engineering design,
scheduling, parameter estimation, control, visual graphics,
and many more. Consequently, development of fast and
efficient optimization algorithms is an actively pursued re-
search area. To aid this research, a number of benchmark
test problems have been suggested in the past for evaluating
and comparing the performances of various optimization
problems. For IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation
(CEC) 2011, a set of real world optimization problems has
been compiled by Das and Suganthan [1]. This paper studies
the performance of a newly proposed memetic algorithm by
the authors on this set of real world optimization problems.
In last two decades or so, population based stochastic
algorithms have gained popularity as generic optimizers.
Their ability to handle highly non-linear, discontinuous or
non-differentiable functions, and to give the solutions (Pareto
front) to a multi-objective problem in a single run, give them
an advantage over conventional optimization methods for
application to real world problems. The most widely studied
978-1-4244-7835-4/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 1322
Tapabrata Ray
School of Engineering and IT
University of New South Wales
Australian Defence Force Academy
ACT 2601, Canberra, Australia
Telephone: +61 2 626 88479
Email: t.ray@adfa.edu.au
of these are called Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs), which
are inspired from Darwinian evolution in nature. Since their
inception by John Holland [2], EAs have been extensively
studied and applied to various problems. Meanwhile, they
have also inspired the development of other population based
heuristic search methods, such as Particle Swarm Optimiza-
tion (PSO), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Differential
Evolution (DE), etc.
Currently, the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm
II (NSGA-II)[3] is arguably the most widely used canonical
EA for optimization. As the name suggests, it uses non-
dominated sorting of the solutions for ranking. Additionally,
diversity is maintained using crowding distance mechanism.
For generating offspring population, NSGA-II uses Sim-
ulated Binary Crossover (SBX) and Polynomial Mutation
(though other operators can also be used).
Recent studies have demonstrated excellent performance
of Differential Evolution (DE) when used with EAs [4],
[5]. Looking at the history of IEEE CEC competitions on
evolutionary optimization for last few years, the dominance
of DE-based methods can be clearly observed [6]. DE makes
exploratory moves in the search space using the difference
between the parameter vectors, unlike traditional EAs which
usually use a probability functions for crossover between
parents.
At the same time, hybridization of global search with local
search has also been emphasized in the literature[7], [8],
[9], [10], [11]. By using local search, specific regions of
the search space can be explored using fewer evaluations
and good quality solutions can be generated early during the
search. At the same time, the global search ensures diversity
of the population and generates good starting solutions for
the local search. This hybrid approach is commonly referred
to as a Memetic Algorithm (MA).
The algorithm presented in this paper attempts to combine
the advantages of the above three approaches, viz., EA,
DE and MA. The evolution of the solutions is done using
traditional EA and DE strategies, and at each generation,
local search is invoked from a promising solution in an A. Initialization
attempt to further improve the solutions. Additional provi- As in common practice, the population is initialized using
sions are employed to avoid stagnation, including occasional random sampling from the solution space. The value of each
local search from a solution, and also re-initialization of the variable is sampled between its lower and upper bound using
population in case there is no improvement for prescribed uniform probability distribution.
number of generations. The performance of the algorithm
is then studied and reported on the set of 14 problems (22 B. Evolution
including different instances) for the CEC 2011 competition. In the proposed algorithm, two different evolution schemes
Rest of the paper is organized as follows. The proposed are used with equal probability for generating the offspring
algorithm is described in Section II. The performance of the population. These are:
proposed algorithm is reported in Section III. To conclude, 1) EA-like evolution – This includes Simulated Binary
a summary of the findings paper is presented in Section IV. Crossover (SBX) and Polynomial Mutation. SBX [12]
is done as shown in Eq. 1.
II. P ROPOSED ALGORITHM
yi1 = 0.5 [(1 + βqi ) x1i + (1 − βqi ) x2i ]
(1)
The proposed algorithm is a population based method in- yi2 = 0.5 [(1 − βqi ) x1i + (1 + βqi ) x2i ]
corporating two kinds of evolutionary mechanisms, either of where βqi is calculated as,
which is used with equal probability during a generation for ⎧
creating offspring. In addition, a local search is invoked from ⎨(2ui )1/ηc +1 , if ui ≤ 0.5,
a promising solution in the population in each generation. An βqi =  1 1/ηc +1 (2)
⎩ if ui > 0.5.
outline of the proposed algorithm is given in Algorithm 1. 2(1−ui )
The main steps of the proposed algorithm are described in and where ui is a uniform random number in the range
the following subsections. [0, 1) and ηc is a user defined parameter, Distribution
Index for Crossover. Polynomial Mutation operator is
Algorithm 1 Proposed algorithm used in this study [13] defined in Eq. 3.
Require: Population size (N ), Number of generations (NG ),
Crossover and mutation parameters. yi = xi + (xi − xi ) δ¯i (3)
1: pop1 = Initialize() where δ¯i is calculated as,
2: Evaluate(pop1 ) 
3: for i = 2 to NG do (2ri )1/(ηm +1) − 1, if ri < 0.5,
δ¯i = (4)
4: if rand(0,1) ≤ 0.5 then 1 − [2(1 − ri )]1/(ηm +1) , if ri ≥ 0.5.
5: childpopi = Evolve EA(popi−1 )
6: else where ri is a uniform random number in the range
7: childpopi = Evolve DE(popi−1 ) [0, 1) and ηm is a user defined parameter, Distribution
8: end if Index for Mutation.
9: Evaluate(childpopi ) 2) DE-like evolution – This includes the DE exponential
10: S = Rank(popi−1 + childpopi ) crossover and mutation, as described in [6], [14].
11: if rand(0,1) ≤ 0.2 then In DE, mutation is performed by adding donor vector
12: x = Random x ∈ popi {Select a random solution} to a parent (target) vector from the current generation.
13: else
 ri ,G + F.(X
i,G = X
V  ri ,G − X
 ri ,G ) (5)
14: x = Choose start x (popi ) {Select a solution as 1 2 3

described in Section II}  ri ,G , X

 ri ,G , X
 ri ,G are three distinct parameter
where X
15: end if 1 2 3
vectors sampled randomly for the population whose
16: xbest ← Local search (x) {xbest is the best solution
indices correspond to r1i , r2i , r3i , and F is a scalar value,
found using local search from x}
typically in the interval [0.4 1).
17: Replace worst solution in popi with xbest
Following the mutation, the donor vector undergoes
18: popi = Rank(popi ) {Rank the solutions again in  i,G to form the trial
crossover with the target vector X
popi } 
vector Ui,G = [u1,i,g , u2,i,G . . . uD,i,G ]. In the present
19: if local search does not improve the objective value
study, exponential crossover is used. In exponential
for K consecutive generations then
crossover, two integers, n and L, are chosen in the
20: popi = Re-initialize() {Retain the best solution
interval [1,D]. The integer n acts as a starting point in
while re-initializing}
the target vector, from where the exchange of compo-
21: end if
nents with donor vector starts; whereas L denotes the
22: end for
number of components the donor vector contributes to
the target vector. The trial vector is obtained as:

1323

uj,i,G = vj,i,G
for j = nD (n + 1)D , . . . (n + L − 1)D
uj,i,G = xj,i,G
for all other j ∈ [1, D]
The angular brackets D denote modulo function with
modulus D. A parameter called Crossover rate (Cr) is
used to determine the probability of using exponential
crossover.
More detailed discussion of the above evolution schemes
can be found in [3], [6].
C. Ranking and reduction
Since the test problems studied in the paper are formulated
as single-objective, unconstrained minimization problems
(constrained problems use penalty functions), the ranking is
done by simply sorting the objective values in ascending or-
der. The best N solutions from the (parent+child) population
form the next generation.
D. Local search
At each generation, in addition to generation of new
solutions using recombination and mutation, a local search is
used for further improvement. Sequential Quadratic Program-
ming (SQP) [15] is used for the local search in the present
study. For certain generations (chosen with probability of
0.2), the starting solution is chosen randomly from the pop-
ulation in order to maintain diversity. Otherwise, the starting
solution is selected from the population in the following way:
• If the local search from a solution was able to improve
the solution in the previous generation, then the current
best solution is used as a starting solution for the local
search. This is done because an improvement through
the local search in the previous generation suggests a
possible scope of further improvement in the solution
through the local search.
• If the local search was unable to improve the best
solution in the previous generation, it is evident that
the existing best solution (in the previous generation) is
either not a good starting solution for the local search,
or close enough to optimum (either local or global),
such that further improvements are difficult. Therefore,
in such a case, a random solution is selected from the
population in an attempt to explore a different region
for obtaining better objective values.
After performing the local search the worst solution in the
population is replaced by the best solution found by the local
search.
E. Re-initialization
In order to prevent the algorithm from stagnating at
local optima, the population is reinitialized if there is no
improvement in the objective value for more than K (=10)
generations. The best solution found during the search is
preserved in the population while re-initializing.
1324
III. R ESULTS ON CEC 2011 REAL WORLD PROBLEMS
A. Experimental setup
Twenty five runs of the proposed MA are done on each
of the test problems posed in the CEC 2011 competition [1].
The parameters used for the algorithm are the same for each
problem, i.e., no tuning of parameters is done across the
problems. The parameters are listed in Table I. A maximum
of 50 × nvar function evaluations are allotted to the local
search within each generation, where nvar is the number of
variables in the problem.
TABLE I: Parameters used for the proposed algorithm
Parameter Value
Population size 200
Max. FES 150000
Crossover probability (SBX / Exponential) 0.9
Crossover index (SBX) 15
Mutation probability 0.1
Mutation index (Polynomial) 20
Scale factor F (DE mutation) 0.9
B. PC configuration
All the runs are performed on a cluster with the compute
nodes DL140G3 5110 NHP Sata, with following configura-
tion:
1) Processor - Dual-core Intel Xeon 5110
2) RAM - 4GB
3) Operating system - Redhat Linux
The proposed algorithm is implemented in Matlab 2009a.
C. Summary of results
The intermediate results for the problems (at 50000 and
100000 evaluations) are shown in Tables II and III respec-
tively, whereas the statistics for the final objective values are
shown in Table IV. The median value reported is 13th value
in the sorted list of objective values obtained across 25 runs.
Since the exact optimum of most of these problems are not
available, it is difficult to gauge the absolute performance
of the algorithm at this stage. However, relative performance
can be evaluated once the results of other algorithms on these
problems become available.
IV. S UMMARY AND F UTURE WORK
In this paper, a hybrid memetic algorithm is presented.
The algorithm attempts to combine advantages of three well
known approaches used for optimization – EA, DE and MA.
In the proposed algorithm, the offspring are generated using
EA and DE strategies with equal probability. Thereafter,
the solutions in the population are further improved by
invoking a local search during each generation using SQP.
To prevent the algorithm from stagnation, the local search
is occasionally started from a random solution. In addition,
if the local search is not able to improve the solutions for
a prescribed number of generations, then the population is
 TABLE II: Performance of the proposed algorithm after 5×104 evaluations
Problem Median Best Mean Worst S.D.
Problem 01 10.1675 1.16742e-11 7.60227 15.4409 6.02057
Problem 02 -23.1711 -28.4225 -23.0199 -16.5337 3.56379
Problem 03 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 1.17446e-18
Problem 04 15.0378 13.8542 15.4119 20.878 1.9663
Problem 05(1) -35.97 -36.9286 -35.2036 -31.6664 1.53468
Problem 05(2) -23.0059 -29.1661 -24.8334 -19.5118 3.05057
Problem 06 0.575118 0.5 0.584744 0.799613 0.0779346
Problem 07 220 220 220 220 0
Problem 08 107.477 14.781 989.755 5784.92 1592.49
Problem 09 -21.1363 -21.6104 -18.949 -12.2778 3.24434
Problem 10(1) 2.51557e+06 1.31554e+06 2.81229e+06 5.80252e+06 1.08889e+06
Problem 10(2) 2.67636e+07 2.3794e+07 2.6536e+07 2.87631e+07 999447
Problem 11(1) 15457.9 15446.3 15458.5 15471.4 8.27191
Problem 11(2) 19243.9 18875.5 19296.9 19678.8 184.361
Problem 11(3) 33016 32915.4 33021.7 33163.3 71.0478
Problem 11(4) 355731 343909 357899 382565 9666.42
Problem 11(5) 2.70822e+06 1.96663e+06 3.18125e+06 6.50302e+06 1.21192e+06
Problem 12(1) 2.18299e+06 1.38553e+06 2.18503e+06 3.94774e+06 580625
Problem 12(2) 2.68863e+06 1.4389e+06 2.83343e+06 4.01017e+06 714632
Problem 12(3) 2.18299e+06 1.38553e+06 2.18503e+06 3.94774e+06 580625
Problem 13 16.0693 8.91272 16.2315 22.3175 2.94555
Problem 14 19.5124 11.1583 19.7081 31.7659 4.82337

TABLE III: Performance of the proposed algorithm after 1 × 105 evaluations

Problem Median Best Mean Worst S.D.
Problem 01 1.29125e-09 1.16742e-11 3.8056 11.4902 5.20912
Problem 02 -25.5054 -28.4225 -24.6248 -16.5337 3.4294
Problem 03 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 1.02939e-18
Problem 04 14.3291 13.8431 14.7674 19.2249 1.38671
Problem 05(1) -35.97 -36.9286 -35.7792 -34.1647 0.996516
Problem 05(2) -27.4298 -29.1661 -26.1778 -21.2481 2.90947
Problem 06 0.521136 0.5 0.536185 0.634252 0.0375193
Problem 07 220 220 220 220 0
Problem 08 63.3651 8.07406 606.011 3210.24 937.201
Problem 09 -21.358 -21.7956 -20.6788 -13.0154 2.13134
Problem 10(1) 1.9824e+06 727529 1.95144e+06 3.34075e+06 751710
Problem 10(2) 2.19417e+07 2.09482e+07 2.19699e+07 2.28543e+07 520307
Problem 11(1) 15451.8 15445.5 15454.3 15471.3 7.53973
Problem 11(2) 19222.9 18875.5 19233 19460.2 125.175
Problem 11(3) 32960.8 32834.6 32958 33107.7 62.2709
Problem 11(4) 354351 343909 355255 369814 7454.82
Problem 11(5) 2.35573e+06 1.96663e+06 2.75347e+06 5.76762e+06 908764
Problem 12(1) 1.6995e+06 1.21632e+06 1.75407e+06 2.45722e+06 369321
Problem 12(2) 2.44336e+06 1.4389e+06 2.48706e+06 3.99085e+06 508226
Problem 12(3) 1.6995e+06 1.21632e+06 1.75407e+06 2.45722e+06 369321
Problem 13 15.4118 8.00076 14.5131 18.9582 2.62032
Problem 14 19.1884 8.63458 18.4534 24.7601 4.07166

reinitialized, while retaining the best solution found from the
search until then. The performance of the proposed algorithm
is studied on a set of 14 real world problems compiled for
the CEC 2011 competition. The performance can be judged
in greater details once the results of CEC 2011 competition
are available.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The presented work was supported by grants from Defence
and Security Applications Research Center (DSARC) and
Research and Research Training Office (RRTO), Australian
Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales,
Australia. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Amitay
Isaacs for his support in the implementation of the presented
algorithm.
R EFERENCES
[1] S. Das and P. Suganthan, “Problem definitions and evaluation criteria
for the CEC 2011 competition on testing evolutionary algorithms
on real world optimization problems,” Jadavpur University, Kolkata,
India, and Nangyang Technological University, Singapore, Tech. Rep.,
December, 2010.
[2] J. H. Holland, Adaptation in natural and artificial systems. Cam-
bridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 1992.
[3] K. Deb, A. Pratap, S. Agarwal, and T. Meyarivan, “A fast and elitist
multiobjective genetic algorithm: NSGA-II,” Evolutionary Computa-
tion, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 6, pp. 182–197, 2002.
[4] S.-Z. Zhao, P. Suganthan, and S. Das, “Self-adaptive
differential evolution with multi-trajectory search for large-
scale optimization,” Soft Computing - A Fusion of Foundations,

1325
 TABLE IV: Performance of the proposed algorithm after 1.5 × 105 evaluations
Problem Median Best Mean Worst S.D.
Problem 01 6.08465e-10 1.16742e-11 2.09489 11.3743 4.30635
Problem 02 -26.4644 -28.4225 -25.8992 -20.8217 2.24252
Problem 03 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 1.15149e-05 9.97108e-19
Problem 04 14.3291 13.8431 14.3688 19.0598 0.995967
Problem 05(1) -36.8454 -36.9286 -36.3092 -34.1647 0.791614
Problem 05(2) -29.1661 -29.1661 -27.3355 -23.0059 2.61528
Problem 06 0.514659 0.5 0.527842 0.620619 0.0355253
Problem 07 220 220 220 220 0
Problem 08 47.9732 8.07406 522.144 3210.24 919.856
Problem 09 -21.3734 -21.7956 -21.2554 -16.9809 0.904825
Problem 10(1) 1.71608e+06 182645 1.51568e+06 3.16774e+06 717585
Problem 10(2) 2.03711e+07 1.96688e+07 2.05975e+07 2.24535e+07 605955
Problem 11(1) 15449.5 15445.5 15450.7 15461.8 4.24154
Problem 11(2) 19209.7 18875.5 19204.5 19393.1 124.229
Problem 11(3) 32911.8 32782.9 32909.1 33021.4 49.1015
Problem 11(4) 353060 343909 353046 368753 6093.27
Problem 11(5) 2.34603e+06 1.96663e+06 2.58355e+06 4.7126e+06 646958
Problem 12(1) 1.56474e+06 1.21632e+06 1.66379e+06 2.34766e+06 327744
Problem 12(2) 2.24644e+06 1.4389e+06 2.35142e+06 3.77107e+06 454677
Problem 12(3) 1.56474e+06 1.21632e+06 1.66379e+06 2.34766e+06 327744
Problem 13 14.1173 7.97952 13.7679 16.6897 2.37386
Problem 14 17.4063 8.63372 17.3857 23.2744 3.68906

Methodologies and Applications, pp. 1–11, 2010, 10.1007/s00500-
010-0645-4. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00500-
010-0645-4
[5] F. Neri and V. Tirronen, “Recent advances in differential evolution:
a survey and experimental analysis,” Artificial Intelligence Review,
vol. 33, pp. 61–106, 2010, 10.1007/s10462-009-9137-2. [Online].
Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10462-009-9137-2
[6] S. Das and P. N. Suganthan, “Differential evolution: A survey of the
state-of-the-art,” Evolutionary Computation, IEEE Transactions on,
vol. PP, no. 99, pp. 1 –28, 2010.
[7] Y.-S. Ong, M. Lim, and X. Chen, “Memetic computation;past,
present; future [research frontier],” Computational Intelligence Maga-
zine, IEEE, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 24 –31, may 2010.
[8] H. Singh, T. Ray, and W. Smith, “Performance of infeasibility em-
powered memetic algorithm for CEC 2010 constrained optimization
problems,” in Evolutionary Computation (CEC), 2010 IEEE Congress
on, 2010, pp. 1 –8.
[9] V. Tirronen, F. Neri, T. Karkkainen, K. Majava, and T. Rossi, “A
memetic differential evolution in filter design for defect detection in
paper production,” in Applications of Evolutionary Computing, ser.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, M. Giacobini, Ed. Springer
Berlin / Heidelberg, 2007, vol. 4448, pp. 320–329.
[10] L.-Y. Tseng and S.-C. Liang, “A hybrid metaheuristic for the quadratic
assignment problem,” Computational Optimization and Applications,
vol. 34, pp. 85–113, 2006, 10.1007/s10589-005-3069-9. [Online].
Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10589-005-3069-9
[11] K. Ganesh and M. Punniyamoorthy, “Optimization of continuous-
time production planning using hybrid genetic algorithms-simulated
annealing,” The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing
Technology, vol. 26, pp. 148–154, 2005, 10.1007/s00170-003-1976-4.
[Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00170-003-1976-4
[12] K. Deb and S. Agrawal, “Simulated binary crossover for continuous
search space,” Complex Systems, vol. 9, pp. 115–148, 1995.
[13] K. Deb and M. Goyal, “A combined genetic adaptive search (geneas)
for engineering design,” Computer Science and Informatics, vol. 26,
pp. 30–45, 1996.
[14] K. Price, R. Storn, and J. Lampinen, Differential evolution - A Prac-
tical Approach to Global Optimization. Springer, Berlin, Germany,
2005.
[15] M. Powell, “A fast algorithm for nonlinearly constrained optimization
calculations.” in Numerical Analysis, G. Watson, Ed. Springer, 1978,
pp. 144–157.

1326