A deep hybrid transfer learning-based evolutionary algorithm and its application in the optimization of high-order problems

High-order problems pose significant challenges for evolutionary algorithms (EAs) to optimize. To mitigate this, a deep hybrid transfer learning EA (DHTL-EA) is proposed. DHTL-EA works by transferring both the model and the optima from a corresponding low-order problem. Here, a deep neural network is adopted to model both the low-order and high-order problems, and the training data are derived from historical evolutionary data. The theoretical basis of DHTL-EA is well-supported by the transferability of solutions among domination-landscape-equivalent problems. The transfer to high-order problem is achieved by retraining the last fully connected layer of the deep neural network model for the target problem. Experiments on two groups of problems validated that DHTL-EA is effective on high-order problems. Further testing on other benchmark functions demonstrated its competitive performance.