Novel Random Key Encoding Schemes for the Differential Evolution of Permutation Problems

Differential evolution is a powerful nature-inspired real-parameter optimization algorithm that has been successfully used to solve a number of hard optimization problems. It has been used to tackle both continuous and discrete optimization problems. The application of a continuous method to discrete problems involves several challenges, including solution representation and search space–solution space mapping. In this work, we study random key encoding, a popular encoding scheme that is used to represent permutations in high-dimensional continuous spaces. We analyze the search space it constitutes, study its structure and properties, and introduce two novel modifications of the encoding. We investigate the proposed encoding strategies in the context of four variants of the differential evolution algorithm and demonstrate their usefulness for two widespread permutation problems: 1) the linear ordering problem and 2) the traveling salesman problem.