pyrade 0.3.0

High-performance, modular Differential Evolution optimization

PyRADE

Python Rapid Algorithm for Differential Evolution

A high-performance, modular Differential Evolution (DE) optimization package that demonstrates how clean OOP architecture can outperform monolithic implementations through aggressive vectorization.

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📖 What is PyRADE?

PyRADE is a production-ready optimization library implementing Differential Evolution (DE), a powerful evolutionary algorithm for global optimization. Unlike traditional implementations that sacrifice code quality for performance, PyRADE proves you can have both through intelligent design.

Why Choose PyRADE?

✅ 3-5x Faster than typical DE implementations
✅ Clean, Modular Code that's easy to understand and extend
✅ Battle-Tested Algorithms with 10+ benchmark functions included
✅ Flexible Architecture - plug in your own strategies with ease
✅ Production Ready - comprehensive documentation and examples

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🚀 Key Features

• ⚡ High Performance: 3-5x faster than traditional implementations through aggressive NumPy vectorization
• 🏗️ Clean Architecture: Strategy pattern for all operators - easy to understand and extend
• 🔧 Modular Design: Plug-and-play mutation, crossover, and selection strategies
• 📦 Production Ready: Well-documented, tested, professional-quality code
• 🎯 Easy to Use: Simple, intuitive API similar to scikit-learn optimizers
• 🧪 Comprehensive: Includes 10+ benchmark functions and multiple real-world examples
• 🔬 Extensible: Create custom strategies in minutes, not hours

📊 Performance

PyRADE's vectorized implementation significantly outperforms traditional loop-based DE:

Function	Dimension	Modular (PyRADE)	Monolithic	Speedup
Sphere	20	0.45s	1.89s	4.2x
Rastrigin	20	0.52s	2.14s	4.1x
Rosenbrock	20	0.48s	1.95s	4.1x
Ackley	20	0.51s	2.08s	4.1x

Average speedup: 4.1x without sacrificing code quality!

📦 Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/pyrade.git
cd pyrade

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Install package
pip install -e .

Or install directly:

pip install numpy>=1.20.0

🎯 Quick Start

Example 1: Minimizing a Simple Function

Let's start by minimizing the classic Sphere function: f(x) = Σx²

import numpy as np
from pyrade import DifferentialEvolution

# Define your objective function to minimize
def sphere(x):
    """Simple quadratic function - global minimum at origin"""
    return np.sum(x**2)

# Create the optimizer
optimizer = DifferentialEvolution(
    objective_func=sphere,
    bounds=[(-100, 100)] * 10,  # 10-dimensional problem, each dimension in [-100, 100]
    pop_size=50,                 # Population size (recommended: 5-10x dimensions)
    max_iter=200,                # Maximum iterations
    verbose=True,                # Show progress
    seed=42                      # For reproducibility
)

# Run the optimization
result = optimizer.optimize()

# View results
print(f"Best solution found: {result['best_solution']}")
print(f"Best fitness value: {result['best_fitness']:.6e}")
print(f"Optimization time: {result['time']:.2f}s")

Output:

Final best fitness: 6.834298e+01
Total time: 0.050s

Example 2: Using Built-in Benchmark Functions

PyRADE includes many standard test functions. Let's optimize the challenging Rastrigin function:

from pyrade import DifferentialEvolution
from pyrade.benchmarks import Rastrigin

# Create a 20-dimensional Rastrigin function (highly multimodal!)
func = Rastrigin(dim=20)
print(f"Global optimum: {func.optimum}")
print(f"Search bounds: {func.bounds}")

# Optimize using default settings
optimizer = DifferentialEvolution(
    objective_func=func,
    bounds=func.get_bounds_array(),  # Get properly formatted bounds
    pop_size=100,
    max_iter=300,
    verbose=True
)

result = optimizer.optimize()

# Check how close we got to the global optimum
error = abs(result['best_fitness'] - func.optimum)
print(f"\nFinal fitness: {result['best_fitness']:.6e}")
print(f"Error from global optimum: {error:.6e}")
print(f"Success: {error < 1e-3}")

Available Benchmark Functions:

• Sphere, Rastrigin, Rosenbrock, Ackley, Griewank
• Schwefel, Levy, Michalewicz, Zakharov

Example 3: Using Custom Strategies

Fine-tune the algorithm by selecting specific strategies:

from pyrade import DifferentialEvolution
from pyrade.operators import DEbest1, ExponentialCrossover, GreedySelection
from pyrade.benchmarks import Ackley

func = Ackley(dim=30)

# Use exploitative mutation for faster convergence
optimizer = DifferentialEvolution(
    objective_func=func,
    bounds=func.get_bounds_array(),
    mutation=DEbest1(F=0.8),                    # Exploitative mutation strategy
    crossover=ExponentialCrossover(CR=0.9),     # Exponential crossover
    selection=GreedySelection(),                 # Greedy selection
    pop_size=100,
    max_iter=500,
    verbose=True
)

result = optimizer.optimize()
print(f"Optimized fitness: {result['best_fitness']:.6e}")

Strategy Guide:

• Mutation: DErand1 (exploration), DEbest1 (exploitation), DEcurrentToBest1 (balanced)
• Crossover: BinomialCrossover (standard), ExponentialCrossover (segment-based)
• Selection: GreedySelection (standard), TournamentSelection (diversity), ElitistSelection (elite preservation)

🏗️ Architecture

PyRADE uses a clean, extensible architecture based on the Strategy pattern:

pyrade/
├── core/
│   ├── algorithm.py          # Main DifferentialEvolution class
│   └── population.py          # Population management
├── operators/
│   ├── mutation.py            # Mutation strategies (DE/rand/1, DE/best/1, etc.)
│   ├── crossover.py           # Crossover strategies (Binomial, Exponential)
│   └── selection.py           # Selection strategies (Greedy, Tournament, etc.)
├── utils/
│   ├── boundary.py            # Boundary handling (Clip, Reflect, Random, etc.)
│   └── termination.py         # Termination criteria
└── benchmarks/
    └── functions.py           # Standard test functions

🎨 Available Strategies

Mutation Strategies

• DE/rand/1: Most common, good exploration
• DE/best/1: Exploitative, fast convergence
• DE/current-to-best/1: Balanced exploration/exploitation
• DE/rand/2: More exploratory with two difference vectors

Crossover Strategies

• Binomial: Standard independent dimension crossover
• Exponential: Contiguous segment crossover
• Uniform: Equal probability crossover

Selection Strategies

• Greedy: Keep better individual (standard)
• Tournament: Tournament-based selection
• Elitist: Preserve top individuals

Boundary Handlers

• Clip: Clip to bounds (most common)
• Reflect: Reflect at boundaries
• Random: Replace with random value
• Wrap: Toroidal topology
• Midpoint: Use midpoint between bound and parent

📚 Benchmark Functions

PyRADE includes 10+ standard test functions:

• Sphere: Simple unimodal
• Rastrigin: Highly multimodal
• Rosenbrock: Valley-shaped
• Ackley: Many local minima
• Griewank: Multimodal
• Schwefel: Deceptive
• Levy: Multimodal
• Michalewicz: Steep valleys
• Zakharov: Unimodal

Example 4: Real-World Application - Engineering Design

Optimize a real engineering problem with constraints:

import numpy as np
from pyrade import DifferentialEvolution

def pressure_vessel_cost(x):
    """
    Minimize cost of a pressure vessel design.
    x[0]: shell thickness, x[1]: head thickness
    x[2]: inner radius, x[3]: length
    """
    # Material and welding costs
    cost = (
        0.6224 * x[0] * x[2] * x[3] +
        1.7781 * x[1] * x[2]**2 +
        3.1661 * x[0]**2 * x[3] +
        19.84 * x[0]**2 * x[2]
    )
    
    # Add penalty for constraint violations
    penalty = 0
    
    # Constraint: minimum shell thickness
    if x[0] < 0.0625:
        penalty += 1000 * (0.0625 - x[0])**2
    
    # Constraint: minimum head thickness  
    if x[1] < 0.0625:
        penalty += 1000 * (0.0625 - x[1])**2
    
    # Constraint: minimum volume
    volume = (np.pi * x[2]**2 * x[3] + 
              4/3 * np.pi * x[2]**3)
    if volume < 1296000:
        penalty += 10 * (1296000 - volume)**2
    
    return cost + penalty

# Define bounds for each variable
bounds = [
    (0.0625, 99),   # shell thickness
    (0.0625, 99),   # head thickness  
    (10, 200),      # inner radius
    (10, 200)       # length
]

optimizer = DifferentialEvolution(
    objective_func=pressure_vessel_cost,
    bounds=bounds,
    pop_size=40,
    max_iter=500,
    seed=42
)

result = optimizer.optimize()
print(f"Optimal design cost: ${result['best_fitness']:.2f}")
print(f"Design parameters: {result['best_solution']}")

Example 5: Using Callbacks for Progress Monitoring

Track optimization progress with custom callbacks:

from pyrade import DifferentialEvolution
from pyrade.benchmarks import Rosenbrock

# Storage for tracking progress
history = {'iterations': [], 'fitness': []}

def progress_callback(iteration, best_fitness, best_solution):
    """Called after each iteration"""
    history['iterations'].append(iteration)
    history['fitness'].append(best_fitness)
    
    # Print every 50 iterations
    if iteration % 50 == 0:
        print(f"Iteration {iteration:4d}: Best fitness = {best_fitness:.6e}")

func = Rosenbrock(dim=10)

optimizer = DifferentialEvolution(
    objective_func=func,
    bounds=func.get_bounds_array(),
    pop_size=50,
    max_iter=300,
    callback=progress_callback,  # Add your callback
    verbose=False
)

result = optimizer.optimize()

# Plot convergence curve
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot(history['iterations'], history['fitness'])
plt.xlabel('Iteration')
plt.ylabel('Best Fitness')
plt.yscale('log')
plt.title('Convergence Curve')
plt.show()

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🔬 Complete Examples

The examples/ directory contains comprehensive, ready-to-run examples:

1. basic_usage.py - Simple optimization scenarios with detailed explanations
2. custom_strategy.py - Creating and using custom mutation/crossover strategies
3. benchmark_comparison.py - Performance benchmarking against monolithic implementations

Run examples:

cd examples
python basic_usage.py
python custom_strategy.py  
python benchmark_comparison.py

What you'll learn:

• How to optimize different types of functions
• Using callbacks for monitoring
• Handling constraints with penalties
• Comparing different strategies
• Creating custom operators
• Performance optimization techniques

🧪 Experiment Manager & Output Structure

PyRADE includes a powerful ExperimentManager for automated benchmarking, visualization, and data export.

How It Works

• Selects and runs multiple benchmark functions with configurable parameters (runs, population, iterations, dimensions)
• Automatically generates and saves:
  • Convergence plots (per function and combined)
  • Fitness boxplots
  • Raw data (NumPy arrays, CSVs)
  • Summary statistics and rankings
  • Timestamped experiment folders for easy organization

Output Folder Structure

experiment_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS/
├── convergence_plots/
│   ├── sphere_convergence.png
│   ├── rastrigin_convergence.png
│   └── ... (one per function)
├── all_functions_convergence.png
├── fitness_boxplot.png
├── statistics.txt
├── csv_exports/
│   ├── sphere_detailed.csv
│   ├── summary_statistics.csv
│   └── ... (per function)
├── raw_data/
│   ├── sphere_convergence.npy
│   ├── sphere_final_fitness.npy
│   └── ... (per function)
└── config.json

Example Usage

from pyrade import ExperimentManager

manager = ExperimentManager(
        benchmarks=['Sphere', 'Rastrigin', 'Rosenbrock'],
        n_runs=30,
        population_size=50,
        max_iterations=100,
        dimensions=10
)
manager.run_complete_pipeline()

All results are saved in a new folder named with the date and time of the experiment.

🎓 Creating Custom Strategies

Custom Mutation Strategy

from pyrade.operators import MutationStrategy
import numpy as np

class MyMutation(MutationStrategy):
    def __init__(self, F=0.8):
        self.F = F
    
    def apply(self, population, fitness, best_idx, target_indices):
        pop_size = len(population)
        # Your vectorized mutation logic here
        # Must return mutants array of shape (pop_size, dim)
        mutants = ...  # Your implementation
        return mutants

Custom Crossover Strategy

from pyrade.operators import CrossoverStrategy
import numpy as np

class MyCrossover(CrossoverStrategy):
    def __init__(self, CR=0.9):
        self.CR = CR
    
    def apply(self, population, mutants):
        # Your vectorized crossover logic here
        # Must return trials array of shape (pop_size, dim)
        trials = ...  # Your implementation
        return trials

📈 Performance Tips

1. Use vectorized operations: All strategies should process entire population at once
2. Tune population size: Typically 5-10x the problem dimension
3. Choose appropriate F and CR: F=0.8, CR=0.9 work well for most problems
4. Select mutation strategy wisely:
   • DE/rand/1: General-purpose
   • DE/best/1: Fast convergence on unimodal
   • DE/current-to-best/1: Balanced approach

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Areas for contribution:

• Additional mutation/crossover strategies
• More benchmark functions
• Performance optimizations
• Documentation improvements
• Bug fixes

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Storn & Price for the original Differential Evolution algorithm
• NumPy team for the amazing numerical computing library
• Scientific Python community

📞 Contact

For questions, suggestions, or issues:

• Open an issue on GitHub
• Email: [e-mail]

🌟 Star History

If you find PyRADE useful, please consider starring the repository!

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PyRADE - Proving that clean, modular design and high performance can coexist! 🚀