A multi-strategy enhanced reptile search algorithm for global optimization and engineering optimization design problems

Abstract

The reptile search algorithm (RSA) is a well-known swarm-based metaheuristic algorithm inspired by the hunting behaviors of crocodiles. To overcome the problems of falling into local optima and premature convergence, this paper proposes a multi-strategy enhanced reptile search algorithm (MRSA), which integrates a novel dynamic evolutionary sense, prey approaching strategy and Cauchy mutation strategy. The prey approaching strategy comes from the secretary bird optimization algorithm and is applied to strengthen the exploration capability of RSA. A comparative performance analysis is conducted using the CEC2005, CEC2017 and CEC2022 benchmark functions. And fifteen algorithms are employed for the performance comparison. The results of numerical, convergence curves, boxplots, Wilcoxon rank-sum test and Friedman ranking confirm the efficacy and stability of proposed MRSA, indicating its superior performance compared to other algorithms. Moreover, seven practical engineering design tasks are used to test the performance of MRSA in real-world optimization problems. The results also show that MRSA can efficiently obtain better optimal solution compared to existing methods.