Spark‐based parallel processing whale optimization algorithm

Abstract

SummarySwarm intelligence meta‐heuristic optimization algorithms for optimizing engineering applications have become increasingly popular. The whale optimization algorithm (WOA) is a recent and effective swarm intelligence optimization algorithm that mimics humpback whales' behaviors when optimizing a problem. Applying the algorithm to achieve optimal solutions has shown good results compared to most meta‐heuristic optimization algorithms. However, complex applications might require the processing of large‐scale computations, which results in down‐scaling computational throughput of WOA. Apache Spark, a well‐known parallel data processing framework, is the most recent distributed computing framework and has been proven to be the most efficient. In this article, we propose a WOA implementation on top of Apache Spark, represented as SBWOA, to enhance its computational performance while providing higher scalability of the algorithm for handling more complex problems. Compared with the recently reported MapReduce WOA (MR‐WOA), and serial implementation of WOA, our approach achieves significant enhancements with respect to computational performance for the highest population size with the maximum number of iterations. SBWOA successfully handles higher‐complexity problems which require complex computations.