A competitive co-evolutionary cultural differential evolution and its application to constrained optimization in butane alkylation process

A competitive co-evolutionary cultural differential evolution (CCCDE) is proposed for constrained optimization problems. A center individual, which is a potential solution, is introduced in the belief space. Competitive strategy is used to realize the co-evolution of multi-population. A relative fitness, i.e. competitive fitness, is presented to establish a diversity mechanism, which helps to escape from local optima when individuals are premature. CCCDE algorithm is validated through comparisons with two representative constraint- handling methods using eleven benchmark constrained problems. We also studied how to choose three thresholds, which are employed in the diversity mechanism. Finally, CCCDE is applied to a real-world problem with the objective to maximize the profit of butane alkylation process. It shows better applicability and effectiveness when compared with three other algorithms.