A discrete differential evolution algorithm for the weapon target assignment problem

A new discrete differential evolution algorithm was proposed to solve the static weapon target assignment (SWTA) problem. Firstly, the integer permutation was applied to building weapon-target assignment pair. Then, the differential mutation was designed by means of the modular operator to restrict the bound offending solutions into the search space. At the same time, the corresponding crossover strategy was presented to acquire the feasible solutions. In the process of crossover, the same assignment pairs of the objective and trial vectors were reserved for utilizing the results of the previous generation. In order to avoid the bias, a random permutation was generated to assure the fairness in the process of deleting repeat integers and reinserting new integers. The experimental results demonstrate that the new DDE is superior to the other two typical DDEs in terms of convergence property and solution quality and solves the static weapon target assignment problem.