A new artificial immune algorithm and its application for optimization problems

A new artificial immune algorithm (AIA) simulating the biological immune network system with self-adjustment function is proposed in this paper. AIA is based on the modified immune network model in which two methods of affinity measure evaluated are used, controlling the antibody diversity and the speed of convergence separately. The model proposed focuses on a systemic view of the immune system and takes into account cell-cell interactions denoted by antibody affinity. The antibody concentration defined in the immune network model is responsible directly for its activity in the immune system. The model introduces not only a term describing the network dynamics, but also proposes an independent term to simulate the dynamics of the antigen population. The antibodies’ evolutionary processes are controlled in the algorithms by utilizing the basic properties of the immune network. Computational amount and effect is a pair of contradictions. In terms of this problem, the AIA regulating the parameters easily attains a compromise between them. At the same time, AIA can prevent premature convergence at the cost of a heavy computational amount (the iterative times). Simulation illustrates that AIA is adapted to solve optimization problems, emphasizing multimodal optimization.