Abstract?In this paper, we propose a new unified differential evolution (uDE) algorithm for single objective global optimization. Instead of selecting among multiple mutation strategies as in the conventional differential evolution algorithm, this algorithm employs a single equation as the mutation strategy. It has the virtue of mathematical simplicity and also provides users the flexbility for broader exploration of different mutation strategies. Numerical tests using twelve basic unimodal and multimodal functions show promising performance of the proposed algorithm in comparison to convential differential evolution algorithms.
