An improved multimodal PSO method based on electrostatic interaction
  using n- nearest-neighbor local search
  In this paper, an improved multimodal optimization (MMO) algorithm,called
LSEPSO,has been proposed. LSEPSO combined Electrostatic Particle Swarm
Optimization (EPSO) algorithm and a local search method and then made some
modification on them. It has been shown to improve global and local optima
finding ability of the algorithm. This algorithm useda modified local search to
improve particle's personal best, which used n-nearest-neighbour instead of
nearest-neighbour. Then, by creating n new points among each particle and n
nearest particles, it tried to find a point which could be the alternative of
particle's personal best. This method prevented particle's attenuation and
following a specific particle by its neighbours. The performed tests on a
number of benchmark functions clearly demonstrated that the improved algorithm
is able to solve MMO problems and outperform other tested algorithms in this
article.
