AN EVALUATION OF THE SNIFFER GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM USING STANDARD TEST FUNCTIONS

The performance of Sniffer-a new global optimization algorithm-is compared with that of Simulated Annealing. Using the number of function evaluations as a measure of efficiency, the new algorithm is shown to be significantly better at finding the global minimum of seven standard test functions. Several of the test functions used have many local minima and very steep walls surrounding the global minimum. Such functions are intended to thwart global minimization algorithms. © 1992.