This paper develops a novel control methodology for tracking control of robot manipulators based on a novel adaptive backstepping nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control (ABNFTSMC). In this approach, a novel backstepping nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller (BNFTSMC) is developed based on an integration of integral nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode surface and a backstepping control strategy. The benefits of this approach are that the proposed controller can preserve the merits of the integral nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control (NFTSMC) in terms of high robustness, fast transient response, and finite-time convergence, as well as backstepping control strategy in terms of globally asymptotic stability based on Lyapunov criterion. However, the major limitation of the proposed BNFTSMC is that its design procedure is dependent on the prior knowledge of the bound value of the disturbance and uncertainties. In order to overcome this limitation, an adaptive technique is employed to approximate the upper bound value; yielding an ABNFTSMC is recommended. The proposed controller is then applied for tracking control of a PUMA560 robot and compared with other state-of-the-art controllers, such as computed torque controller, PID controller, conventional PID-based sliding mode controller, and NFTSMC. The comparison results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach.

For a dynamic traveling salesman problem (DTSP), the weights (or traveling times) between two cities (or nodes) may be subject to changes. Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms have proved to be powerful methods to tackle such problems due to their adaptation capabilities. It has been shown that the integration of local search operators can significantly improve the performance of ACO. In this paper, a memetic ACO algorithm, where a local search operator (called unstring and string) is integrated into ACO, is proposed to address DTSPs. The best solution from ACO is passed to the local search operator, which removes and inserts cities in such a way that improves the solution quality. The proposed memetic ACO algorithm is designed to address both symmetric and asymmetric DTSPs. The experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed memetic algorithm for addressing DTSPs in comparison with other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Multipopulation methods are effective in solving dynamic optimization problems. However, to efficiently track multiple optima, algorithm designers need to address a key issue: how to adapt the number of populations. In this paper, an adaptive multipopulation framework is proposed to address this issue. A database is designed to collect heuristic information of algorithm behavior changes. The number of populations is adjusted according to statistical information related to the current evolving status in the database and a heuristic value. Several other techniques are also introduced, including a heuristic clustering method, a population exclusion scheme, a population hibernation scheme, two movement schemes, and a peak hiding method. The particle swarm optimization and differential evolution algorithms are implemented into the framework, respectively. A set of multipopulation-based algorithms are chosen to compare with the proposed algorithms on the moving peaks benchmark using four different performance measures. The effect of the components of the framework is also investigated based on a set of multimodal problems in static environments. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms outperform the other algorithms in most scenarios.