Application of a GEO + SA hybrid optimization algorithm to the solution of an inverse radiative transfer problem

Abstract

In a former study (F.L. de Sousa, F.M. Ramos, F.J.C.P. Soeiro, and A.J. Silva Neto, Application of the generalized extremal optimization algorithm to an inverse radiative transfer problem, Inverse Probl. Sci. Eng. 15 (2007), pp. 699-714), a new evolutionary optimization metaheuristic - the generalized extremal optimization (GEO) algorithm (F.L. de Sousa, F.M. Ramos, P.Paglione, and R.M. Girardi, A new stochastic algorithm for design optimization, AIAA J. 41 (2003), pp. 1808-1818) - was applied to the solution of an inverse problem of radiative properties estimation. A comparison with two other stochastic methods; simulated annealing (SA) and genetic algorithms (GA), was also performed, demonstrating GEO's competitiveness for that problem. In the present article, a recently developed hybrid version of GEO and SA (R.L. Galski, Development of improved, hybrid, parallel, and multiobjective versions of the generalized extremal optimization method and its application to the design of spatial systems, D.Sc. Thesis, Instituto Nacional de Pequisas Espaciais, Brazil, 2006, p. 279. INPE-14795-TDI/1238 (in Portuguese)) is applied to the same radiative transfer problem and the results obtained are compared with those from the previous study. The present approach was already foreseen (e.g. in F.L. de Sousa, F.M. Ramos, F.J.C.P. Soeiro, and A.J. Silva Neto, Application of the generalized extremal optimization algorithm to an inverse radiative transfer problem, Inverse Probl. Sci. Eng. 15 (2007), pp. 699-714) as a technique that could significantly improve the performance of GEO for this problem. The idea is to make use of a scheduling for GEO's free parameter γ in a similar way to the cooling rate of SA. The main objective of this approach is to combine the good exploration properties of GEO during the early stages of the search with the good convergence properties of SA at the end of the search. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.