Orthogonal cultural optimization algorithm and its application in layout optimization

Layout optimization problems arise widely in engineering applications and are now recognized as an important category of combinatorial optimization problems. However most unconstrained layout optimization problems are NP-Complete. There are constrained and unconstrained layout optimization problems, the former is more difficult. An orthogonal cultural optimization algorithm is proposed by integrating the Differential Evolution algorithm and GuoTao algorithm into the Culture algorithm framework. The algorithm uses the orthogonal design to generate initial population. They compare the performance of the system on a constrained layout optimization and on a large-scale unconstrained test case. Experimental results demonstrate a dramatic improvement on the precision of layout result, and the algorithm efficiency has been demonstrated.