Niche Differential Evolution Algorithm and its Application in Multimodal Function Optimization

In multimodal optimization, the original differential evolution algorithm is easy to duplicate and miss points of the optimal value. To solve this problem, a modified differential evolution algorithm, called niche differential evolution (NDE), is proposed. In the algorithm, the basic differential evolution algorithm is improved based on the niche technology. The rationality to construct the proposed algorithm is discussed. Shubert function, a representative multimodal optimization problem is used to verify the algorithm. The results show that the proposed algorithm can find all global optimum points quickly without strict request for parameters, so it is a good approach to find all global optimum points for multimodal functions.