Parameter estimation in non-linear chemical processes: an opposite point-based differential evolution (OPDE) approach

Abstract In recent years, evolutionary algorithms have been gaining popularity for finding optimal solutions to non-linear multimodal problems encountered in many engineering disciplines. Differential evolution (DE), an evolutionary algorithm, is a novel optimization method capable of handling nondifferentiable, non-linear, and multimodal objective functions. DE is an efficient, effective, and robust evolutionary optimization method. Still, DE takes large computational time to optimize the computationally expensive objective functions. Therefore, an attempt to speed up DE is considered necessary. This paper introduces a modification to the original DE that enhances the convergence rate without compromising solution quality. The proposed opposite point-based differential evolution (OPDE) algorithm utilizes opposite point-based population initialization, in addition to random initialization. Such an improvement reduces computational effort. The OPDE has been applied to benchmark test functions and high-dimensional non-linear chemical engineering problems. The proposed method of population initialization accelerates the convergence speed of DE, as indicated by the results obtained using benchmark test functions and non-linear chemical engineering problems.