On the Analysis of the Quantum-inspired Evolutionary Algorithm with a Single Individual

This paper discusses the reason why QEA works and verifies how QEA works. The theoretical analysis of the simplified model of the segment process of QEA shows that QEA with a single individual for OneMax problem guarantees the global solution in terms of expected running number of generations. The analysis for exploration shows clearly that QEA starts with a global search scheme and changes automatically into a local search scheme as generation advances because of its inherent probabilistic mechanism, which leads to a good balance between exploration and exploitation. For comparison purpose, simulated annealing is considered with three test functions. The results support the conclusions derived from the theoretical analysis of QEA with a single individual.