A novel nature-inspired meta-heuristic algorithm for optimization: bear smell search algorithm

Abstract

In the recent years, the optimization problems show that they are a big challenge for engineering regarding the fast growth of new nature-inspired optimization algorithms. Therefore, this paper presents a novel nature-inspired meta-heuristic algorithm for optimization which is called as bear smell search algorithm (BSSA) that takes into account the powerful global and local search operators. The proposed algorithm imitates both dynamic behaviors of bear based on sense of smell mechanism and the way bear moves in the search of food in thousand miles farther. Among all animals, bears have inconceivable sense of smell due to their huge olfactory bulbs that manage the sense of different odors. Since the olfactory bulb is a neural model of the vertebrate forebrain, it can make a strong exploration and exploitation for optimization. According to the odors value, bear moves the next location. Therefore, this paper mathematically models these structures. To demonstrate and evaluate the BSSA ability, numerous types of benchmark functions and four engineering problems are employed to compare the obtained results of BSSA with other available optimization methods with several analyzed indices such as pair-wise test, Wilcoxon rank and statistical analysis. The numerical results revealed that proposed BSSA presents competitive and greater results compared to other optimization algorithms.