Hierarchical Cooperative COEvolution: Presentation and Assessment Study

The current paper addresses the design of complex distributed systems consisting of many components by using Hierarchical Cooperative CoEvolution (HCCE), an optimization mechanism that also follows a distributed organization. The proposed coevolutionary scheme is capable of optimizing complex distributed systems, taking also into account the specialized roles of substructures. Here, we present HCCE and we compare it with ordinary Unimodal evolution and Enforced SubPopulation coevolution. The current study aims at highlighting the internal dynamics of HCCE that give rise to its effectiveness in addressing difficult distributed design problems. The results obtained attest to the validity and effectiveness of HCCE, showing that it outperforms both other schemes.