Hi everyone,
I am performing an optimization analysis using MATLAB's Genetic Algorithm (GA) to select design variables, which are then passed to ANSYS to calculate some structural properties. My goal is to find the global optimum, so I have set the population size to 100 × number of variables. While this ensures a broader search space and reduces the risk of getting stuck in local optima, it significantly increases the convergence time because finite element analysis (FEA) needs to be performed for each population member. The current setup takes about a week (or more) to converge, which is not feasible.
To address this, I plan to implement parallel computing for the GA. I need help with the following aspects:
- Parallel Implementation:On my local desktop, I have Number of workers: 6, which means I can evaluate 6 members of the population simultaneously. However, I want to make my code generic so that it automatically adjusts to the number of workers available on any machine. How can I achieve this in MATLAB?
- Improving Convergence Speed:Another approach I’ve come across is using the MigrationInterval and MigrationFractionoptions to divide the population into smaller "islands" that exchange solutions periodically. Would this approach be suitable in my case, and how can I implement it effectively?
- Objective Function Parallelization:Below is the current version of my objective function, which works without parallelization. It writes input variables to an ANSYS .inp file, runs the simulation, and reads results from a text file. How should I modify this function (if needed) to make it compatible with MATLAB’s parallel computing features?
function cost = simple_objective(x, L)
% Write input variables to the file
fid = fopen('Design_Variables.inp', 'w+'); % Ansys APDL reads this
fprintf(fid, 'H_head = %f\n', x(1));
fprintf(fid, 'R_top = %f\n', x(2));
fclose(fid);
% Set ANSYS and Run model
ansys_input = 'ANSYS_APDL.dat';
output_file = 'out_file.txt';
cmd = sprintf('SET KMP_STACKSIZE=15000k & "C:\\Program Files\\ANSYS Inc\\v232\\ansys\\bin\\winx64\\ANSYS232.exe" -b -i %s -o %s', ansys_input, output_file);
system(cmd);
% Remove file lock if it exists
if exist('file.lock', 'file')
delete('file.lock');
end
% Read results
fileID = fopen('PC1.txt', 'r');
load_multip = fscanf(fileID,'%f',[1,inf]);
fclose(fileID);
if load_multip == 0 % nondesignable geometry
cost = 1e9; % penalty
else
cost = -load_multip;
end
end
GA Options:
Here are the GA options I am currently using. Do I need to adjust these for parallelization or migration-based approaches?
“options = optimoptions("ga", ... 'OutputFcn',@SaveOut, ... 'Display', 'iter', ... 'PopulationSize', 200, ... 'Generations', 50, ... 'EliteCount', 2, ... 'CrossoverFraction', 0.98, ... 'TolFun', 1.0e-9, ... 'TolCon', 1.0e-9, ... 'StallTimeLimit', Inf, ... 'FitnessLimit', -Inf, ... 'PlotFcn',{@gaplotbestf,@gaplotstopping});”
I would greatly appreciate it if you could guide me on:
- How to enable and configure parallel computing for GA in MATLAB.
- Any adjustments required in the objective function for parallel execution.
- Whether migration-based GA (using MigrationInterval and MigrationFraction) is a good alternative in my case.
Thank you for your time and help!