Improving mutation strategies in differential evolution with a new pbest selection mechanism

Differential evolution, which belongs to a group of population-based algorithms, has received a lot of research attention since its introduction in 1995. A population-based algorithm is required to guide individuals to visit potentially better basins of attraction in the search space when searching for a global optimal solution. Additionally, individuals need to interact with each other during an evolutionary process to explore the search space effectively. In this paper, we propose a novel pbest selection mechanism for DE/current-to-pbest mutation strategy and its variants designed to enhance the potential for exploration of different attraction basins. The proposed mechanism enforces a minimal distance between the selected pbest individual and all other better individuals. This means that possible candidates for the pbest individual, used in mutation, are further spaced apart. As a result, the likelihood that the new trial vector will be generated in a different attraction basin of the search space is increased. The mechanism is incorporated into the L-SHADE, jSO, and L-SRTDE algorithms, and its effectiveness is evaluated using CEC’24 benchmark functions. Experimental results demonstrate improvements in the performance of the selected algorithms, particularly in higher-dimensional problem instances. • Novel mechanism for the selection of pbest individual in mutation strategy. • Application of this mechanism to three state-of-the-art algorithms. • Experimental analysis of the proposed current-to-pbest mutation strategy.