Hybrid teaching-learning with comprehensive learning capability for electromagnetic device design problems

Abstract

Many optimal design problems in the engineering field are nonlinear, multivariate, mixed integer, multimodal, and constrained. Meta-heuristic approaches have been widely used to solve these complex problems, but most of them are often sensitive to the settings of tuning parameters for different optimization problems, and suffer from premature convergence during the evolution process. This article proposes a novel hybrid teaching-learning-based optimization (HTLBO) algorithm to tackle this problem. A comprehensive teaching-learning mechanism with no adjustable parameters is introduced to improve the global optimal solution while in the meantime maintaining the solution diversity. The performance of the proposed HTLBO is tested on nine unconstrained benchmark functions and two nonlinear constrained benchmark functions with integer variables. Then the algorithm is applied to solve two significant electromagnetic design problems, that is, optimal brushless direct-current (BLDC) motor design and electromagnetic actuator geometric construction design. Simulation results on both the benchmark functions and practical engineering design problems confirm the efficiency and robustness of the proposed algorithm.