Swarm Intelligence

best. As the effect of these terms is to adjust the velocity of the particle,

the effect on its trajectory is not to move it with the gradient, but to

cause the particle to oscillate around the previous best point—sometimes

with the gradient and sometimes against it. The gradient then is used

simply to keep the particle oriented in the region of previous successes,

similar to methods in EC, and is not followed in the traditional way of

hill climbers.

A particle moves in a stochastic oscillatory trajectory through the

problem space, sampling around relatively optimal local points, while an

evolutionary individual searches by changing position through ...