Deep Learning-Based Step Size Determination for Hill Climbing Metaheuristics

Machine Learning-assisted metaheuristics is a new and promising research topic, combining the advantages of both method families. Metaheuristics are widely used general problem solvers that can be fine-tuned by prior knowledge about the search space; however, this adaptation can be a very time-consu...

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Main Authors: Sándor Szénási, Gábor Légrádi, Gábor Kovács
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Algorithms
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4893/18/5/298
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author Sándor Szénási
Gábor Légrádi
Gábor Kovács
author_facet Sándor Szénási
Gábor Légrádi
Gábor Kovács
author_sort Sándor Szénási
collection DOAJ
description Machine Learning-assisted metaheuristics is a new and promising research topic, combining the advantages of both method families. Metaheuristics are widely used general problem solvers that can be fine-tuned by prior knowledge about the search space; however, this adaptation can be a very time-consuming and complex task. This paper proposes a hybrid variation of the Hill Climbing method using a Machine Learning model to learn this domain-specific knowledge in advance to help determine the optimal step size of each iteration. A Deep Feedforward Neural Network was trained on the steps of thousands of Hill Climbing runs. This model was used in a novel alternating method (using traditional and Machine Learning-based steps) to predict the optimal step size for each iteration. This hybrid algorithm was compared to the already-known variants. The results show that the novel hybrid method is able to find slightly better results than the original Hill Climbing method, requiring significantly fewer fitness calculations.
format Article
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institution OA Journals
issn 1999-4893
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publisher MDPI AG
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spelling doaj-art-0bb22bafd1a34631bbdaadb6135942812025-08-20T01:56:57ZengMDPI AGAlgorithms1999-48932025-05-0118529810.3390/a18050298Deep Learning-Based Step Size Determination for Hill Climbing MetaheuristicsSándor Szénási0Gábor Légrádi1Gábor Kovács2John von Neumann Faculty of Informatics, Óbuda University, 1034 Budapest, HungaryJohn von Neumann Faculty of Informatics, Óbuda University, 1034 Budapest, HungaryJohn von Neumann Faculty of Informatics, Óbuda University, 1034 Budapest, HungaryMachine Learning-assisted metaheuristics is a new and promising research topic, combining the advantages of both method families. Metaheuristics are widely used general problem solvers that can be fine-tuned by prior knowledge about the search space; however, this adaptation can be a very time-consuming and complex task. This paper proposes a hybrid variation of the Hill Climbing method using a Machine Learning model to learn this domain-specific knowledge in advance to help determine the optimal step size of each iteration. A Deep Feedforward Neural Network was trained on the steps of thousands of Hill Climbing runs. This model was used in a novel alternating method (using traditional and Machine Learning-based steps) to predict the optimal step size for each iteration. This hybrid algorithm was compared to the already-known variants. The results show that the novel hybrid method is able to find slightly better results than the original Hill Climbing method, requiring significantly fewer fitness calculations.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4893/18/5/298machine learningmetaheuristicshill climbingoptimizationoptimal step-sizeepsilon value
spellingShingle Sándor Szénási
Gábor Légrádi
Gábor Kovács
Deep Learning-Based Step Size Determination for Hill Climbing Metaheuristics
Algorithms
machine learning
metaheuristics
hill climbing
optimization
optimal step-size
epsilon value
title Deep Learning-Based Step Size Determination for Hill Climbing Metaheuristics
title_full Deep Learning-Based Step Size Determination for Hill Climbing Metaheuristics
title_fullStr Deep Learning-Based Step Size Determination for Hill Climbing Metaheuristics
title_full_unstemmed Deep Learning-Based Step Size Determination for Hill Climbing Metaheuristics
title_short Deep Learning-Based Step Size Determination for Hill Climbing Metaheuristics
title_sort deep learning based step size determination for hill climbing metaheuristics
topic machine learning
metaheuristics
hill climbing
optimization
optimal step-size
epsilon value
url https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4893/18/5/298
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