Enhanced Distributed Parallel Firefly Algorithm Based on the Taguchi Method for Transformer Fault Diagnosis

To improve the reliability and accuracy of a transformer fault diagnosis model based on a backpropagation (BP) neural network, this study proposed an enhanced distributed parallel firefly algorithm based on the Taguchi method (EDPFA). First, a distributed parallel firefly algorithm (DPFA) was implemented and then the Taguchi method was used to enhance the original communication strategies in the DPFA. Second, to verify the performance of the EDPFA, this study compared the EDPFA with the firefly algorithm (FA) and DPFA under the test suite of Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2013 (CEC2013). Finally, the proposed EDPFA was applied to a transformer fault diagnosis model by training the initial parameters of the BP neural network. The experimental results showed that: (1) The Taguchi method effectively enhanced the performance of EDPFA. Compared with FA and DPFA, the proposed EDPFA had a faster convergence speed and better solution quality. (2) The proposed EDPFA improved the accuracy of transformer fault diagnosis based on the BP neural network (up to 11.11%).