README.md

optim-benchmark: Benchmarking gradient-free optimisers on synthetic functions

• Overview
• Usage
  • Run Experiment
  • Visualising Results
• Optimisation Algorithms & Benchmark Functions
• Results
  • Easy
  • Hard
  • Number of Evaluations to a Goal

Overview

This repository benchmarks various gradient-free (black-box) optimisers on synthetic functions. Specifically, we look at the following variables when considering standard benchmark functions:

• Noise
• Dimensions
• Effects of logarithms

Usage

The code is designed to work with Python 3.6.1+. All required libraries are listed in requirements.txt, but the key ingredients are nevergrad, cma, scikit-optimize and bayesian-optimization. We recommend creating an environment using Miniconda.

git clone https://github.com/lazyoracle/optim-benchmark
cd optim-benchmark
conda create --name=benchmark python==3.6.1
conda activate benchmark
pip install -r requirements.txt
jupyter lab --port 4242 demo_notebook.ipynb

Run Experiment

There are two steps to running an experiment:

• Defining experiment conditions
• Invoking the code to parse conditions and run experiment

Here's an example:

algo_list = ['CMA', 'NoisyBandit', 'NoisyOnePlusOne', 'PSO',
             'RandomSearch', 'SPSA', 'TBPSA']
func_list = ['rosenbrock', 'sphere4', 'rastrigin', 'griewank', 'deceptivepath']
dim_list = [2, 3, 5, 8]
eps_list = [0.5, 0.10, 0.05, 0.03, 0.02, 0.01, 0]
log_list = [False]
EVAL_BUDGET = 1000
#CREATE A NEW FILE IF CHANGING THE NUMBER OF EVALUATIONS
saved_file = "results-low-dim.pkl" #File to read from where previous expts were stored
                            # or new file to write to
save_interval = 600
initials = [0.0, 5.0, -5.0, 23.46, -23.46]

run_exp(algo_list, func_list, dim_list, eps_list, log_list, EVAL_BUDGET, saved_file, 'pkl', initials, save_interval)

Visualising Results

Generating plots from the current experiment or previously run experiments is also straightforward.

exp_df = pd.read_pickle('results-low-dim.pkl')

stripped_expt_df = exp_df.drop(columns = ['exp_data', 'min_params', 'f_min', 'time'])
results_summary(stripped_expt_df)

eval_budget = 1000
filter_func = lambda z: ((z['func'] in ['rastrigin']) and
                     (z['dim'] == 5) and
                     (z['log'] in [False]) and
                     (z['algo'] in ['CMA', 'NoisyBandit', 'NoisyOnePlusOne', 'PSO',
                                     'RandomSearch', 'SPSA', 'TBPSA']) and
                     (z['starter'] in [5.0]) and  
                     (z['noise_level'] in [0.03]))
use_tex = False
fig_test = plot_regular(exp_df, filter_func, use_tex, plot_evals = eval_budget, y_field = 'f_min', logplot='y')

Optimisation Algorithms & Benchmark Functions

The algorithm and some of the benchmark function implementations are taken from nevergrad. While the code should work with all algorithms listed in nevergrad, we specifically look at the following here:

• CMA
• Random Search
• Noisy Bandit
• Powell’s
• SPSA
• Differential Evolution
• PSA
• (1+1)
• Particle Swarm
• Nelder Mead
• Bayesian Optimisation
• Estimation of Distribution

We test the above algorithms on the following synthetic functions (with a visual representation of the function landscape):

Translated Sphere

Rosenbrock

Ill-Conditioned

Multimodal

Path-Function

Results

We group the combined effects of function landscape, noise and dimensions into Easy, Medium, Medium-Hard and Hard and study the minimisation of the funtion as the algorithm progresses with more function evaluations. The code is also designed to study the number of evaluations that would be required to reach a specific f_min goal.

Some preliminary results can be seen below:

Easy

• Convex (translated sphere)
• noise 0.03
• dimension 3
• X: log-scale evaluations
• Y: log-scale goal

Hard

• Ill-Conditioned
• noise 0.1
• dimension 1000
• X: log-scale evaluations
• Y: log-scale goal

Number of Evaluations to a Goal

• Rosenbrock
• noise 0.1
• Goal 1e-7

More details on preliminary results can be seen in the presentation from July 2019