A statistical method for global optimization

Abstract

An algorithm for finding global optima using statistical prediction is presented. Assuming a random function model, lower confidence bounds on predicted values are used for sequential selection of evaluation points and as a convergence criterion. Comparison with published results for several test functions indicates that the procedure is very efficient in finding the global optimum of a multimodal function, and in terminating with relatively few evaluations.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>