Under construction. This area is a framework being built: most courses have no teaching material yet, and things may change or break. Private self-study. Not an official programme and not recognised by any ministry or school. No qualification, mark or document is issued, and “years 1 to 3” and “advanced” are names of study paths only.

E33 Evolutionary and swarm optimization

Years 1 to 3 pathE: Proposed extensionsplannedabout 100 h (planning estimate)

Planned: syllabus only, no teaching material yet. Nothing on this page can be studied; it describes what the course would cover.

Named in: Years 1 to 3 pathway

Why this course

Metaheuristics are common in applications; the mathematics of why and when they work is rarely taught.

Prerequisites

Required: B05 Discrete mathematics, B11 Probability I, B20 Optimization I
Recommended: none
Can be taken at the same time: none
Everything required, transitively (11 courses): B01, B02, B03, B04, B05, B06, B08, B11, B20, F01, F02
Courses that require this one: none

Concept-level units

Units follow the syllabus order, as a recommended sequence rather than a gate.

Black-box optimization and the no-free-lunch theorems
Genetic algorithms and schema theory
Evolution strategies and CMA-ES
Particle swarm optimization and convergence analysis
Ant colony optimization
Simulated annealing and Markov-chain analysis
Multi-objective optimization and Pareto fronts
Benchmarking fairly

Assessable outcome

Run, analyse and honestly compare two metaheuristics on a benchmark, with a convergence argument for one.

Assessment design

topic exercises
mixed problem sets
unseen proof or derivation problems
cumulative examination

cumulative; uses spaced retrieval

Resources

Every title here is candidate, unverified unless marked verified. Titles were suggested while planning. Nobody has checked that they exist, what they cost or how they are licensed.

Eiben and Smith · Introduction to Evolutionary Computing
Kennedy and Eberhart · Particle swarm optimization (paper)
Hansen · The CMA Evolution Strategy: A Tutorial (free)

Content record

Version

0.0.0

Review

no review of any kind

Provenance

PROPOSED by the assistant on 4 Nov 2026 so that a person with a mathematics degree can read AI articles fluently; not in the owner's brief; APPROVED by the owner on 4 Nov 2026 as an elective; still needs a curriculum reviewer

Known issues

Approved as an elective on 4 Nov 2026; syllabus only, no lessons, candidate resources unverified, needs a curriculum reviewer.

Type

course

Bridges and laboratories

No bridge or laboratory is attached to this course yet.

You and this course

Reading your plan on this device…