Hooked on Springs: Using Virtualized Damped Harmonic Oscillators to Explore Complex Search Spaces

A new search engine, based on Hooke's Law, is proposed and applied to both the Multiple Subscriber Equipment (MSE) deployment and Schaffer's F6 equation problems. A virtualized Damped Simple Harmonic Oscillator is constructed using a system with multiple oscillating. The VHO search engine is constructed to converge on an optimal or near-optimal solution, and then, due to damping, come to rest, at which point the search stops. For the MSE problem, the engine finds the optimal solution 90 to nearly 100% of the time (depending on settings) and does so efficiently. For Schaffer's F6, the engine produces more variable fitness levels than a reference Genetic Algorithm (GA) search engine, but has found two solutions better than the GA.