Ackley function

Ackley function of two variables

Contour surfaces of Ackley's function in 3D

In mathematical optimization, the Ackley function is a non-convex function used as a performance test problem for optimization algorithms. It was proposed by David Ackley in his 1987 PhD dissertation.^[1] The function is commonly used as a minimization function with global minimum value 0 at 0,.., 0 in the form due to Thomas Bäck. While Ackley gives the function as an example of "fine-textured broadly unimodal space" his thesis does not actually use the function as a test.

On a 2-dimensional domain it is defined by:

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}f(x,y)=-20&{}\exp \left[-0.2{\sqrt {0.5(x^{2}+y^{2})}}\,\right]\\&{}-\exp \left[0.5\left(\cos 2\pi x+\cos 2\pi y\right)\right]+e+20\end{aligned}}}$^[2]

Its global optimum point is

${\displaystyle f(0,0)=0.}$

• Test functions for optimization