Abstract: A novel PSO population diversity based on norm was defined, which provides useful information of PSO search process. Population diversity based on and norms were analyzed as well as element wised and dimension-wised PSO diversity. Population diversities of PSO with different number of dimensions,different topology structure,and different population sizes were discussed and tested on benchmark functions.

Key words: Evolutionary computation, Particle swarm optimization, Population diversity, Position diversity, Velocity diversity, Cognitive diversity, Norm