Related papers: Distributed Evolution Strategies with Multi-Level …

This study modifies the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) algorithm for multi-modal optimization problems. The enhancements focus on addressing the challenges of multiple global minima, improving the algorithm's…

Optimizing functions without access to gradients is the remit of black-box methods such as evolution strategies. While highly general, their learning dynamics are often times heuristic and inflexible - exactly the limitations that…

Model merging has emerged as a cost-effective alternative to training large language models (LLMs) from scratch, enabling researchers to combine pre-trained models into more capable systems without full retraining. Evolutionary approaches…

The covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES) is an efficient continuous black-box optimization method. The CMA-ES possesses many attractive features, including invariance properties and a well-tuned default hyperparameter…

In this paper, we propose a novel meta-learning method in a reinforcement learning setting, based on evolution strategies (ES), exploration in parameter space and deterministic policy gradients. ES methods are easy to parallelize, which is…

Various variants of the well known Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) have been proposed recently, which improve the empirical performance of the original algorithm by structural modifications. However, in practice it…

The interest in accelerating black-box optimizers has resulted in several surrogate model-assisted version of the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy, a state-of-the-art continuous black-box optimizer. The version called…

The covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES) is a stochastic search algorithm using a multivariate normal distribution for continuous black-box optimization. In addition to strong empirical results, part of the CMA-ES can be…

We introduce an acceleration for covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategies (CMA-ES) by means of adaptive diagonal decoding (dd-CMA). This diagonal acceleration endows the default CMA-ES with the advantages of separable CMA-ES…

This paper introduces a multi-level (m-lev) mechanism into Evolution Strategies (ESs) in order to address a class of global optimization problems that could benefit from fine discretization of their decision variables. Such problems arise…

We present a novel black box optimization algorithm called Hessian Estimation Evolution Strategy. The algorithm updates the covariance matrix of its sampling distribution by directly estimating the curvature of the objective function. This…

Optimum implementation of non-conventional wells allows us to increase considerably hydrocarbon recovery. By considering the high drilling cost and the potential improvement in well productivity, well placement decision is an important…

One of the most challenging types of ill-posedness in global optimization is the presence of insensitivity regions in design parameter space, so the identification of their shape will be crucial, if ill-posedness is irrecoverable. Such…

The Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolutionary Strategy (CMA-ES) is one of the most advanced algorithms in numerical black-box optimization. For noisy objective functions, several approaches were proposed to mitigate the noise, e.g.,…

This paper investigates the control of an ML component within the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) devoted to black-box optimization. The known CMA-ES weakness is its sample complexity, the number of evaluations of…

Proportional integral derivative (PID) controllers are important and widely used tools in system control. Tuning of the controller gains is a laborious task, especially for complex systems such as combustion engines. To minimize the time of…

The covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES) is one of the most successful methods for solving black-box continuous optimization problems. One practically useful aspect of the CMA-ES is that it can be used without…

Water distribution system design is a challenging optimisation problem with a high number of search dimensions and constraints. In this way, Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) have been widely applied to optimise WDS to minimise cost subject…

This tutorial introduces the CMA Evolution Strategy (ES), where CMA stands for Covariance Matrix Adaptation. The CMA-ES is a stochastic, or randomized, method for real-parameter (continuous domain) optimization of non-linear, non-convex…

We explore the use of Evolution Strategies (ES), a class of black box optimization algorithms, as an alternative to popular MDP-based RL techniques such as Q-learning and Policy Gradients. Experiments on MuJoCo and Atari show that ES is a…