Adaptive Operator Selection for Meta-Heuristics: A Survey

Appropriate selection of search operators plays a critical role in meta-heuristic algorithm design. Adaptive selection of suitable operators to the characteristics of different optimization stages is an important task that owns promising potential to improve the performance of a meta-heuristic algorithm. A variety of adaptive operator selection methods have been proposed in last decades, from the machine learning and optimization communities. However, the existing studies have not been systematically reviewed so far. To fill the gap, this article provides a comprehensive survey of adaptive operator selection for meta-heuristics. According to the information required for selection, adaptive operator selection methods are classified into two categories: 1) stateless methods; and 2) state-based methods. Each category is further summarized into several key components. The strategies of each component belonging to the two categories are reviewed respectively. The motivation, strengths and weaknesses of the proposed strategies are also discussed. Furthermore, studied meta-heuristics and optimization problems in the literature are summarized. The effects from the difference of meta-heuristics and problems to the specific design of methods are discussed, together with the guidance of selecting the suitable method in different application scenarios. At the end, emerging challenges that could guide further research are discussed.