Intelligent Optimisation Techniques

Intelligent Optimisation Techniques

D.T. Pham and D. KarabogaSpringer-VerlagLondon, Heidelberg and New York, NY1999302 pp.ISBN 1 85233 028 7

Keywords: Publication, Cybernetics, Genetic algorithms, Optimisation

This is a book that covers the four optimisation techniques that have been described as "intelligent". That is: genetic algorithms, tabu search,simulated annealing and neural networks.

Readers of this journal will know that genetic algorithms can involve the location of optima using processes similar to those in natural selection and genetics. The authors examine and build on this description. The tabu search is a heuristic procedure that employs dynamically generated constraints or tabus to guide the search for optimum solutions. Simulated annealing finds optima in a way that is analogous to the reaching of minimum energy configurations in metal annealing. While we are likely to be familiar with neural networks, these computational models of the brain can be used for optimisation by exploiting their inherent ability to evolve in the direction of the negative gradient of an energy function and to reach a stable minimum of that function. Although the book is aimed at engineers, cyberneticians and systemists will find it a concise introduction to the four techniques discussed. It also presents a range of applications which will prove of interest to the non-engineering reader because they are drawn from electronic, electrical, manufacturing and systems areas. An added bonus is the C programs listings that have been implemented. The authors believe these illustrate the main techniques they describe and allow readers to experiment with them – always an attractive feature of a text.