A discrete binary version of the particle swarm algorithm

The particle swarm algorithm adjusts the trajectories of a population of “particles” through a problem space on the basis of information about each particle´s previous best performance and the best previous performance of its neighbors. Previous versions of the particle swarm have operated in continuous space, where trajectories are defined as changes in position on some number of dimensions. The paper reports a reworking of the algorithm to operate on discrete binary variables. In the binary version, trajectories are changes in the probability that a coordinate will take on a zero or one value. Examples, applications, and issues are discussed