Novel binary differential evolution algorithm for knapsack problems

Abstract The capability of the conventional differential evolution algorithm to solve optimization problems in continuous spaces has been well demonstrated and documented in the literature. However, differential evolution has been commonly considered inapplicable for several binary/permutation-based real-world problems because of its arithmetic reproduction operator. Moreover, many limitations of the standard differential evolution algorithm, such as slow convergence and becoming trapped in local optima, have been defined. In this paper, a novel technique which makes a simple differential evolution algorithm suitable and very effective for solving binary-based problems, such as binary knapsack ones, is proposed. It incorporates new components, such as representations of solutions, a mapping method and a diversity technique. Also, a new efficient fitness evaluation approach for calculating and, at the same time, repairing knapsack candidate solutions, is introduced. To assess the performance of this new algorithm, four datasets with a total of 44 instances of binary knapsack problems are considered. Its performance and those of 22 state-of-the-art algorithms are compared, with the experimental results demonstrating its superiority in terms of both the quality of solutions and computational times. It is also capable of finding new solutions which are better than the current best ones for five large knapsack problems.