Robot Base Disturbance Optimization with Compact Differential Evolution Light ⋆ Giovanni Iacca, Fabio Caraffini, Ferrante Neri, and Ernesto Mininno Department of Mathematical Information Technology, P.O. Box 35 (Agora), 40014 University of Jyv¨askyl¨ a, Finland {giovanni.iacca,fabio.caraffini,ferrante.neri,ernesto.mininno}@jyu.fi Abstract. Despite the constant growth of the computational power in consumer electronics, very simple hardware is still used in space applica- tions. In order to obtain the highest possible reliability, in space systems limited-power but fully tested and certified hardware is used, thus reduc- ing fault risks. Some space applications require the solution of an opti- mization problem, often plagued by real-time and memory constraints. In this paper, the disturbance to the base of a robotic arm mounted on a spacecraft is modeled, and it is used as a cost function for an on- line trajectory optimization process. In order to tackle this problem in a computationally efficient manner, addressing not only the memory sav- ing necessities but also real-time requirements, we propose a novel com- pact algorithm, namely compact Differential Evolution light (cDElight). cDElight belongs to the class of Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs), which mimic the behavior of population-based algorithms by means of a probabilistic model of the population of candidate solutions. This model has a more limited memory footprint than the actual popula- tion. Compared to a selected set of memory-saving algorithms, cDElight is able to obtain the best results, despite a lower computational overhead. 1 Introduction Some real-world problems, due to real-time, space, and cost requirements, impose the solution of an optimization problem, sometimes even complex, on a device with limited memory and computational resources. This situation is typical, for instance, in mobile robots and real-time control systems, where all the compu- tation is performed on board of an embedded system. Some examples of this class of problems can be found in home automation, mobile TLC devices, smart sensors and biomedical devices. Among these applications, space control systems represent an interesting exception. Despite the constant growth of the computa- tional power in consumer electronics, very simple and dated hardware is indeed still used on spacecrafts. It must be remarked that the computational devices on board of a spaceship should reliably work without any kind of rebooting for ⋆ This research is supported by the Academy of Finland, Akatemiatutkija 130600, Algorithmic Design Issues in Memetic Computing and Tutkijatohtori 140487, Algo- rithmic Design and Software Implementation: a Novel Optimization Platform. C. Di Chio et al. (Eds.): EvoApplications 2012, LNCS 7248, pp. 285–294, 2012. c  Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012