\input zb-basic \input zb-ioport \iteman{io-port 05229341} \itemau{Mahanfar, Alireza; Bila, St\'ephane; Aubourg, Michel; Verdeyme, Serge} \itemti{Cooperative particle swarm optimization of passive microwave devices.} \itemso{Int. J. Numer. Model. 21, No. 1-2, 151-168 (2008).} \itemab Summary: Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has lately become very popular in the electromagnetics domain. Although in some instances PSO shows a superior performance compared with other global optimization techniques, it is still computationally more expensive relative to classical gradient techniques. In this paper, a cooperative particle swarm optimization (CPSO) is adopted to achieve a faster convergence compared with the conventional PSO, while maintaining its main feature, which is the capability of finding global optimum. In order to deploy PSO more efficiently, the often neglected effect of the initial population on the overall convergence of PSO is discussed. It is shown that subdividing the space into grid cells and using random distribution within these cells will give the best results in terms of convergence speed. Different boundary conditions are tried on the CPSO algorithm. In order to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm, the algorithm is compared with the conventional PSO using six different objective functions. As a design example, an ultra-wide-band filter is designed. The results show a slightly faster convergence compared with the conventional PSO. The designed filter is fabricated and experimental results are also shown. \itemrv{~} \itemcc{} \itemut{particle swarm optimization; microstrip filters; optimization; ultra-wide-band filter (UWB)} \itemli{doi:10.1002/jnm.655} \end