Last-Position Elimination-Based Fireworks Algorithm for Function Optimization

Fireworks algorithm (FWA) searches the global optimum by the cooperation between the firework with the best fitness named as core firework (CF) and the other non-CFs. Loser-out tournament-based fireworks algorithm (LoTFWA) uses competition as a new manner of interaction. If the fitness of a firework cannot catch up with the best one, it is considered a loser and will be reinitialized. However, its independent selection operator may prevent non-CFs from aggregating to CF in the late search phase if they fall into different local optima. This chapter proposes a last-position, elimination-based fireworks algorithm which allocates more fireworks in the initial process to search. Then for every fixed number of generations, the firework with the worst fitness is eliminated and its sparks is reallocated to other fireworks. In the final stage of search, only CF survives with all the budget of sparks and thus the aggregation of non-CFs to CF is ensured. Experimental results performed show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms most of the state-of-the-art FWA variants.