Economic dispatch optimization using virus-evolutionary particle swarm algorithm

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a population-based stochastic optimization technique, originally developed by Eberhart and Kennedy, inspired by simulation of a social psychological metaphor instead of the survival of the fittest individual. In PSO, the system (swarm) is initialized with a population of random solutions (particles) and searches for optima using cognitive and social factors by updating generations. PSO has been successfully applied to a wide range of applications, mainly in solving continuous nonlinear optimization problems. This paper presents an improved discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm based on virus theory of evolution. Virus-evolutionary discrete particle swarm optimization (VEPSO) algorithm is proposed to simulate co-evolution of a particle swarm of candidate solutions and a virus swarm of substring representing schemata. In the co-evolutionary process, the virus propagates partial genetic information in the particle swarm by virus infection operators which enhances the horizontal search ability of particle swarm optimization algorithm. The methodology is validated for a test system consisting of 13 thermal units whose incremental fuel cost function takes in to account the valve-point loading effects.