Drift theory in continuous search spaces: Expected hitting time of the (1+1)-ES with 1/5 success rule

Youhei Akimoto, Anne Auger, Tobias Glasmachers

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This paper explores the use of the standard approach for proving runtime bounds in discrete domains-often referred to as drift analysis-in the context of optimization on a continuous domain. Using this framework we analyze the (1+1) Evolution Strategy with one-fifth success rule on the sphere function. To deal with potential functions that are not lower-bounded, we formulate novel drift theorems. We then use the theorems to prove bounds on the expected hitting time to reach a certain target fitness in finite dimension d. The bounds are akin to linear convergence. We then study the dependency of the different terms on d proving a convergence rate dependency of Θ(1/d). Our results constitute the first non-asymptotic analysis for the algorithm considered as well as the first explicit application of drift analysis to a randomized search heuristic with continuous domain.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGECCO 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages801-808
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781450356183
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Jul 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event2018 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, GECCO 2018 - Kyoto, Japan
Duration: 15 Jul 201819 Jul 2018

Publication series

NameGECCO 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference

Conference

Conference2018 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, GECCO 2018
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityKyoto
Period15/07/1819/07/18

Keywords

  • Drift
  • Evolution strategies
  • Hitting time
  • Linear convergence

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