An Analysis of Particle Swarm Optimizers

Many scientific, engineering and economic problems involve the optimisation of a set of parameters. These problems include examples like minimising the losses in a power grid by finding the optimal configuration of the components, or training a neural network to recognise images of people's faces. Numerous optimisation algorithms have been proposed to solve these problems, with varying degrees of success. The Particle Swarm Optimiser (PSO) is a relatively new technique that has been empirically shown to perform well on many of these optimisation problems. This thesis presents a theoretical model that can be used to describe the long-term behaviour of the algorithm. An enhanced version of the Particle Swarm Optimiser is constructed and shown to have guaranteed convergence on local minima. This algorithm is extended further, resulting in an algorithm with guaranteed convergence on global minima. A model for constructing cooperative PSO algorithms is developed, resulting in the introduction of two new PSO-based algorithms. Empirical results are presented to support the theoretical properties predicted by the various models, using synthetic benchmark functions to investigate specific properties. The various PSO-based algorithms are then applied to the task of training neural networks, corroborating the results obtained on the synthetic benchmark functions.