A Comparison of Some Nature-Inspired Optimization Metaheuristics Applied in Biomedical Image Registration

Computational Intelligence Re-meets Medical Image Processing Analysis of Machine Learning Algorithms for Diagnosis of Diffuse Lung Diseases BACKGROUND:  In the last decades, new optimization methods based on the nature's intelligence were developed. These metaheuristics can find a nearly optimal solution faster than other traditional algorithms even for high-dimensional optimization problems. All these algorithms have a similar structure, the difference being made by the strategies used during the evolutionary process.

A set of three nature-inspired algorithms, including Cuckoo Search algorithm (CSA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Multi-Swarm Optimization (MSO), are compared in terms of strategies used in the evolutionary process and also of the results obtained in case of particular optimization problems.

The three algorithms were applied for biomedical image registration (IR) and compared in terms of performances. The expected geometric transform has seven parameters and is composed of rotation against a point in the image, scaling on both axis with different factors, and translation.

The evaluation consisted of 25 runs of each IR procedure and revealed that (1) PSO offers the most precise solutions; (2) CSA and MSO are more stable in the sense that their solutions are less scattered; and (3) MSO and PSO have a higher convergence speed.

The evaluation of PSO, MSO, and CSA was made for multimodal IR problems. It is possible that for other optimization problems and also for other settings of the optimization algorithms, the results can be different. Therefore, the nature-inspired algorithms demonstrated their efficacy for this class of optimization problems.