Self-Potential data inversion through a Genetic-Price algorithm

A global optimization method based on a Genetic-Price hybrid Algorithm (GPA) is proposed for identifying the source parameters of self-potential (SP) anomalies. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is tested on synthetic SP data generated by simple polarized structures, like sphere, vertical cylinder, horizontal cylinder and inclined sheet. An extensive numerical analysis on signals affected by different percentage of white Gaussian random noise shows that the GPA is able to provide fast and accurate estimations of the true parameters in all tested examples. In particular, the calculation of the root-mean squared error between the true and inverted SP parameter sets is found to be crucial for the identification of the source anomaly shape. Finally, applications of the GPA to self-potential field data are presented and discussed in light of the results provided by other sophisticated inversion methods.