Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a metaheuristic global optimization paradigm that has gained prominence in the last two decades due to its ease of application in unsupervised, complex multidimensional problems that cannot be solved using traditional deterministic algorithms. The canonical particle swarm optimizer is based on the flocking behavior and social co-operation of birds and fish schools and draws heavily from the evolutionary behavior of these organisms. This paper serves to provide a thorough survey of the PSO algorithm with special emphasis on the development, deployment, and improvements of its most basic as well as some of the very recent state-of-the-art implementations. Concepts and directions on choosing the inertia weight, constriction factor, cognition and social weights and perspectives on convergence, parallelization, elitism, niching and discrete optimization as well as neighborhood topologies are outlined. Hybridization attempts with other evolutionary and swarm paradigms in selected applications are covered and an up-to-date review is put forward for the interested reader.

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a metaheuristic global optimization paradigm that has gained prominence in the last two decades due to its ease of application in unsupervised, complex multidimensional problems which cannot be solved using traditional deterministic algorithms. The canonical particle swarm optimizer is based on the flocking behavior and social co-operation of birds and fish schools and draws heavily from the evolutionary behavior of these organisms. This paper serves to provide a thorough survey of the PSO algorithm with special emphasis on the development, deployment and improvements of its most basic as well as some of the very recent state–of-the-art implementations. Concepts and directions on choosing the inertia weight, constriction factor, cognition and social weights and perspectives on convergence, parallelization, elitism, niching and discrete optimization as well as neighborhood topologies are outlined. Hybridization attempts with other evolutionary and swarm paradigms in selected applications are covered and an up-to-date review is put forward for the interested reader.

This paper looks into efficient implementation of one dimensional low pass Finite Impulse Response filters using certain commonly used and state-of-the-art optimization techniques. Methods like Parks-McClellan (PM) equiripple design, Quantum-behaved Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO) and Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA) with Levy Flight are employed and overall performance is further improved by hybridization and adaptive step size update. Various performance metrics are analyzed with a focus on increasing convergence speed to reach global optima faster. It is seen that the improved search methods used in this work, i.e., Simulated Annealing based Weighted Mean Best QPSO (SAWQPSO) and Adaptive CSA (ACSA) effect significant reductions in convergence time with ACSA proving to be the faster one. The designed filter is used in the receiver stage of a Frequency Modulated Radio Transmission model using a Quadrature-Phase Shift Keyed (QPSK) Modulator and Demodulator. Its efficiency is validated by obtaining near perfect correlation between the message and recovered signals.

The Quantum Double Delta Swarm (QDDS) Algorithm is a networked, fully-connected novel metaheuristic optimization algorithm inspired by the convergence mechanism to the center of potential generated within a single well of a spatially colocated double–delta well setup. It mimics the wave nature of candidate positions in solution spaces and draws upon quantum mechanical interpretations much like other quantum-inspired computational intelligence paradigms. In this work, we introduce a Chebyshev map driven chaotic perturbation in the optimization phase of the algorithm to diversify weights placed on contemporary and historical, socially-optimal agents’ solutions. We follow this up with a characterization of solution quality on a suite of 23 single–objective functions and carry out a comparative analysis with eight other related nature–inspired approaches. By comparing solution quality and successful runs over dynamic solution ranges, insights about the nature of convergence are obtained. A two-tailed t-test establishes the statistical significance of the solution data whereas Cohen’s d and Hedge’s g values provide a measure of effect sizes. We trace the trajectory of the fittest pseudo-agent over all iterations to comment on the dynamics of the system and prove that the proposed algorithm is theoretically globally convergent under the assumptions adopted for proofs of other closely-related random search algorithms.