Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
 | 1 | initial version |
Hi Jonny,
As Michael and others have pointed out, simply comparing the optimisation tools such as GenOpt, LB+HB+(optimisation) and jEPlus+EA using one design problem may not give you any meaningful results. This is because they are actually designed for solving different types of problems, so you may end up comparing apples to oranges. However, bearing this in mind, there are in fact two valid research questions worth investigating: (1) a comparison on how they can be used in the design process, including the types of problems they are good at solving; and (2) a comparison of the performance of the implemented algorithms in the tools, using a set of well-defined problems whose global optima are known.
From a developer's perspective, I would love to see research addressing either of the questions, although the latter is rather harder. The Wetter/Wright paper remains so far the definitive comparison on algorithms in building optimisation. It can do with an update to include new developments in both problems and algorithms, I think.
Regards,
Yi
