Evolutionary optimization algorithms continue to attract attention for addressing challenging global optimization (GO) problems owing to their flexibility and adaptability. This study proposed an improved differential evolution (DE)-based algorithm within the hierarchical fair competition (HFC) framework, namely HFCDE. In contrast to traditional DE, which has only one phase, layer, and population, HFCDE allows individuals to evolve across multi-phases and -layers in sub-populations: in each hierarchical layer of each phase, each sub-population evolves iteratively using traditional DE operators until the termination condition is reached. In addition, the parameters such as the number of phases, the number of layers, and the portion coefficients (used to regulate the maximum iterations in each phase) can be adjusted independently for specific problems. Specifically, a typical version of this approach, a two-layer, three-phase HFCDE algorithm, was investigated in detail. Experiments were conducted on 70 benchmark functions (including 13 high-dimensional ones) as well as a complex optimization problem in industrial lighting systems involving the spectral coefficient of a light-emitting diode (LED). Numerical results demonstrated that an accelerated global convergence speed, greater robustness, and higher solution accuracy were achieved, compared with some state-of-the-art evolutionary optimization methods. The percentage of cases where HFCDE outperformed competitors ranged between 71 and 100%. The key parameter settings were also investigated and discussed in detail, showing the relaxed parameter tuning in HFCDE. Furthermore, the HFCDE framework—with its flexible parameter setting mechanism and extensibility to different layers/phases, integration with an adaptive or dynamic parameter adjustment strategy, and replacement of DE operators by other optimization operators—has great potential for addressing GO challenges.
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