Metaheuristic Algorithm Similarity Analysis Based on Performance Metric Mapping of Fractional Ranking

Abstract

Although the diversity of metaheuristic algorithms has been frequently highlighted, the similarity of these algorithms is not studied comprehensively. This work studies the similarity of metahruristic algorithms from their performance perspective captured in a newly proposed fractional ranking method, which can map comprehensive performance measures into a scalar framework. The fractional ranking data is clustered using a k-medoids clustering to find similarities between algorithms. Results show that the proposed similarity analysis scheme reveals a new perspective of metaheuristic algorithms.