Understanding particle swarms through simplification: a study of recombinant PSO

Simplified forms of the particle swarm algorithm are very beneficial in contributing to understanding of what makes a PSO swarm function in the way that it does. One of these forms, PSO with discrete recombination, is analyzed in depth, demonstrating not just improvements in performance to a standard PSO algorithm, but also significantly different behavior with a reduction in bursting patterns due to the removal of stochastic components from the update equations. This altered behavior accompanied by equal and improved performance leads to conjectures that bursts are not generally efficacious in the optimization process.