Adolescent Identity Search Algorithm (AISA): A novel metaheuristic approach for solving optimization problems

The optimisation of complex engineering design problems is highly challenging due to the consideration of various design variables. To obtain acceptable near-optimal solutions within reasonable computation time, metaheuristics can be employed for such problems. However, a plethora of novel metaheuristic algorithms are developed and constantly improved and hence it is important to evaluate the applicability of the novel optimisation strategies and compare their performance using real-world engineering design problems. Therefore, in this paper, eight recent population-based metaheuristic optimisation algorithms—African Vultures Optimisation Algorithm (AVOA), Crystal Structure Algorithm (CryStAl), Human-Behaviour Based Optimisation (HBBO), Gradient-Based Optimiser (GBO), Gorilla Troops Optimiser (GTO), Runge–Kutta optimiser (RUN), Social Network Search (SNS) and Sparrow Search Algorithm (SSA)—are applied to five different mechanical component design problems and their performance on such problems are compared. The results show that the SNS algorithm is consistent, robust and provides better quality solutions at a relatively fast computation time for the considered design problems. GTO and GBO also show comparable performance across the considered problems and AVOA is the most efficient in terms of computation time.

A comprehensive survey of honey badger optimization algorithm and meta-analysis of its variants and applications

Population-based metaheuristic algorithms have become popular in recent years with them getting used in different fields such as business, medicine, and agriculture. The present paper proposes a simple but efficient population-based metaheuristic algorithm called Human Mental Search (HMS). HMS algorithm mimics the exploration strategies of the bid space in online auctions. The three leading steps of HMS algorithm are: (1) the mental search that explores the region around each solution based on Levy flight, (2) grouping that determines a promising region, and (3) moving the solutions toward the best strategy. To evaluate the efficiency of HMS algorithm, some test functions with different characteristics are studied. The results are compared with nine state-of-the-art metaheuristic algorithms. Moreover, some nonparametric statistical methods, including Wilcoxon signed rank test and Friedman test, are provided. The experimental results demonstrate that the HMS algorithm can present competitive results compared to other algorithms.

Over the years, Metaheuristic algorithms have proven significant efficacy in handling None- Deterministic polynomial hard (NP-hard) combinatorial optimization problems, mainly the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) which has been used to evaluate and test many metaheuristics algorithms such as Ant Colony optimizations. This paper contributes a new optimization algorithm to the famous-family of swarm and evolutionary techniques named Scuba Diver Optimization Algorithm (SDOA) which is a novel population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm inspired by the behavioural and physiological dynamics of scuba divers in the open water environments. SDOA simulates main diving factors including (depth, tank pressure/oxygen, bottom time, and ascent strategies) for keeping a balance between explorations and exploitations during the search process. SDOA novelty appears in its adaptive control of solution diversity using pressure and oxygen level thresholds, enabling robust avoidance of local optima and faster convergence. The SDOA algorithm was evaluated on a range of TSP instances from the TSPLIB library, which were categorized into three groups: Group 1, comprising instances with 1–99 cities; Group 2, including instances with 100–999 cities; and Group 3, consisting of large-scale instances with 1000 or more cities. And the results of SDOA is compared with established metaheuristics algorithms such as Ant Colony Optimization, Artificial Bee Colony, and Genetic Algorithm. The study results showing that SDOA consistently produces shorter (near optimal) tour lengths with significantly minimum computational time in larger problem sizes (Group 3). The proposed algorithm also demonstrates better scalability and stability in different initialization and population sizes. Future directions include adapting SDOA for solving other optimization problems including multi-objective or dynamic optimization contexts.

Optimizing resource allocation and routing to satisfy service needs is paramount in large-scale networks. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a new network paradigm that decouples forwarding and control, enabling dynamic management and configuration through programming, which provides the possibility for deploying intelligent control algorithms (such as deep reinforcement learning algorithms) to solve network routing optimization problems in the network. Although these intelligent-based network routing optimization schemes can capture network state characteristics, they are prone to falling into local optima, resulting in poor convergence performance. In order to address this issue, this paper proposes an African Vulture Routing Optimization (AVRO) algorithm for achieving SDN routing optimization. AVRO is based on the African Vulture Optimization Algorithm (AVOA), a population-based metaheuristic intelligent optimization algorithm with global optimization ability and fast convergence speed advantages. First, we improve the population initialization method of the AVOA algorithm according to the characteristics of the network routing problem to enhance the algorithm’s perception capability towards network topology. Subsequently, we add an optimization phase to strengthen the development of the AVOA algorithm and achieve stable convergence effects. Finally, we model the network environment, define the network optimization objective, and perform comparative experiments with the baseline algorithms. The experimental results demonstrate that the routing algorithm has better network awareness, with a performance improvement of 16.9% compared to deep reinforcement learning algorithms and 71.8% compared to traditional routing schemes.

Nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms have been a topic of interest for researchers to solve optimization problems in engineering designs and real-world applications, due to their simplicity and flexibility. This paper presents a new nature-inspired search algorithm called Woodpecker Mating Algorithm (WMA) and applies it to challenging problems in structural optimization. The WMA is a population-based metaheuristic algorithm that mimics the mating behavior of woodpeckers. It was inspired by the drumming sound intensity. In WMA, the population of woodpeckers is divided into male and female groups. The female woodpeckers approach the male woodpeckers based on the intensity of their drum sound. An efficiency comparison was drawn between the WMA algorithm and other metaheuristic algorithms by employing 19 benchmark functions(including unimodal, multimodal and composite functions). Moreover, the performance of WMA is compared with 8 of the best meta-heuristic algorithms using 13 high dimensional multimodal and unimodal benchmark functions. The assessments and statistical results indicate that the WMA algorithm offers promising results and is capable of outperforming the most recent and popular algorithms proposed in the literature in most of the employed benchmark functions. Moreover, a statistically significant difference was observed compared to the other assessed algorithms. The proposed algorithm produced significant results for a non-convex, inseparable, and scalable problems.

Performance evaluation of population-based metaheuristic algorithms and decision-making for multi-objective optimization of building design

In machine learning, feature selection is a crucial and important operation. The basic goal of the feature selection problem is to lower the size of the feature set while preserving performance accuracy. To classify the datasets, many approaches have been devised. Metaheuristic algorithms, on the other hand, have received a lot of interest for handling a variety of optimization problems. As a result, this paper gives a comprehensive assessment of the literature on employing metaheuristic algorithms to solve feature selection problems. Furthermore, based on their behavior, metaheuristic algorithms have been divided into four types. A classified list of over a hundred metaheuristic algorithms is also provided. Only binary variations of metaheuristic algorithms have been evaluated and categorized in order to address the feature selection problem, and a comprehensive explanation of each has been provided. The binary classification, name of the classifier used, datasets, and evaluation metrics for metaheuristic algorithms used to solve feature selection problems are all included. After analyzing the articles, problems and issues in getting the optimal feature subset using various metaheuristic methods are identified. Finally, several research needs are identified for researchers who want to continue their work on building or refining metaheuristic categorization algorithms. A case study is presented for an application in which UCI datasets are adopted and a number of metaheuristic algorithms are used to achieve the optimum functionality.KeywordsMachine learningMetaheuristic algorithmsFeature selectionClassificationBinary variations

In artificial intelligence, evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have shown to be effective and robust in solving difficult optimization problems. EAs are generic populationbased metaheuristic optimization algorithms. The mechanisms used in EAs are inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection. The development of EAs can be classified into two categories: single objective and multi-objective optimization. In this thesis, both single objective and multi-objective evolutionary algorithms have been studied. For single objective optimization, various niching techniques are integrated with differential evolution (DE) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) for multi-modal optimization. Multi-modal optimization deals with optimization tasks that involve finding all or most of the global/local peaks in one single run. EAs in their original forms are usually designed for locating one single global solution. To promote and maintain formation of multiple stable subpopulations within a single population, we introduced a neighborhood mutation technique to enhance DE with ability of handling multi-modal problems. We also proposed a locally informed PSO to tackle multi-modal optimization. Beside these, several existing niching techniques from the literature were modified and improved by us.

Metaheuristic algorithms are constructed to solve optimization problems, but they cannot solve all the problems with best solutions. This work proposes a novel self-adaptive metaheuristic optimization algorithm, named Optimal Stochastic Process Optimizer (OSPO), which can solve different kinds of optimization problems with promising performance. Specifically, OSPO regards the procedure of optimization as a realization of stochastic process, and with the help of Subjective Probability Distribution Function (SPDF) and Receding Sampling Strategy proposed in this paper, OSPO can control the exploration-exploitation property online by the adaptive modification of the parameters in SPDF. This adaptive exploration-exploitation property of OSPO contributes to dealing with different kinds of problems; thus, it makes OSPO have the potential to solve at least a vast majority of optimization problems. The proposed algorithm is first benchmarked on uni-modal, multi-modal and composite test functions both in low and high dimensions. The results are verified by comparative studies with seven well-performed metaheuristic algorithms. Then, 21 real-world optimization problems are used to further investigate the effectiveness of OSPO. The winners of CEC2020 Competition on Real-World Single Objective Constrained Optimization, SASS algorithm, sCMAgES algorithm, EnMODE algorithm and COLSHADE algorithm are used as four comparative algorithms in real-world optimization problems. The analysis of simulations demonstrates that OSPO is able to provide very competitive performance compared to the comparative meta-heuristics both in benchmark functions and in real-world optimization problems; thus, the potential of OSPO to solve at least a vast majority of optimization problems is verified. A corresponding MATLAB APP demo is available on https://github.com/JiahongXu123/OSPO-algorithm.git.

This paper deals with real-time implementation of visual-motor control of a 7 degree of freedom (DOF) robot manipulator using self-organized map (SOM) based learning approach. The robot manipulator considered here is a 7 DOF PowerCube manipulator from Amtec Robotics. The primary objective is to reach a target point in the task space using only a single step movement from any arbitrary initial configuration of the robot manipulator. A new clustering algorithm using Kohonen SOM lattice has been proposed that maintains the fidelity of training data. Two different approaches have been proposed to find an inverse kinematic solution without using any orientation feedback. In the first approach, the inverse Jacobian matrices are learnt from the training data using function decomposition. It is shown that function decomposition leads to significant improvement in accuracy of inverse kinematic solution. In the second approach, a concept called sub-clustering in configuration space is suggested to provide multiple solutions for the inverse kinematic problem. Redundancy is resolved at position level using several criteria. A redundant manipulator is dexterous owing to the availability of multiple configurations for a given end-effector position. However, existing visual motor coordination schemes provide only one inverse kinematic solution for every target position even when the manipulator is kinematically redundant. Thus, the second approach provides a learning architecture that can capture redundancy from the training data. The training data are generated using explicit kinematic model of the combined robot manipulator and camera configuration. The training is carried out off-line and the trained network is used on-line to compute the joint angle vector to reach a target position in a single step only. The accuracy attained is better than the current state of art.

Several optimization problems from various types of applications have been efficiently resolved using available meta-heuristic algorithms such as Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithm. Recently, many meta-heuristic optimization techniques have been extensively reported in the literature. Nevertheless, there is still room for new optimization techniques and strategies since, according to the literature, there is no meta-heuristic optimization algorithm that may be considered as the best choice to cope with all modern optimization problems. This paper introduces a novel meta-heuristic optimization algorithm named Dynamic Group-based Optimization Algorithm (DGCO). The proposed algorithm is inspired by the cooperative behavior adopted by swarm individuals to achieve their global goals. DGCO has been validated and tested against twenty-three mathematical optimization problems, and the results have been verified by a comparative study with respect to state-of-the-art optimization algorithms that are already available. The results have shown the high exploration capabilities of DGCO as well as its ability to avoid local optima. Moreover, the performance of DGCO has also been verified against five constrained engineering design problems. The results demonstrate the competitive performance and capabilities of DGCO with respect to well-known state-of-the-art meta-heuristic optimization algorithms. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to study the effect of different parameters on the performance of the DGCO algorithm.

Analysis and optimization of system reliability have very much importance for developing an optimal design for the system while using the available resources. Several studies are centered towards reliability optimization using metaheuristics. In this study, a recently developed metaheuristic optimization algorithm called hybrid PSO‐GWO (HPSGWO) to solve the reliability‐redundancy optimization problem has been proposed. The HPSGWO fuses the Particle Swarm Optimization's (PSO) exploitation ability with the grey wolf optimizer's (GWO) exploration ability. The comparison of results with prior best results of PSO and GWO for the four benchmarks of reliability redundancy allocation problem demonstrates the HPSGWO as a productive enhancement strategy since it got promising answers than other metaheuristic algorithms.

<p>In last decade, numerous meta-heuristic algorithms have been proposed for dealing the complexity and difficulty of numerical optimization problems in the realworld which is growing continuously recently, but only a few algorithms have caught researchers’ attention. In this study, a new swarm-based meta-heuristic algorithm called Rhizostoma optimization algorithm (ROA) is proposed for solving the optimization problems based on simulating the social movement of Rhizostoma octopus (barrel jellyfish) in the ocean. ROA is intended to mitigate the two optimization problems of trapping in local optima and slow convergence. ROA is proposed with three different movement strategies (simulated annealing (SA), fast simulated annealing (FSA), and Levy walk (LW)) and tested with 23 standard mathematical benchmark functions, two classical engineering problems, and various real-world datasets including three widely used datasets to predict the students’ performance. Comparing the ROA algorithm with the latest meta-heuristic optimization algorithms and a recent published research proves that ROA is a very competitive algorithm with a high ability in optimization performance with respect to local optima avoidance, the speed of convergence and the exploration/exploitation balance rate, as it is effectively applicable for performing optimization tasks.</p>

Implementation of harmony search on embedded platform