Exploitation Capabilities Research Articles

Quadratic interpolation and a new local search approach to improve particle swarm optimization: Solar photovoltaic parameter estimation

The Particle Swarm Optimization technique (PSO) is widely used in practical applications due to its flexibility and strong optimization performance. However, like other metaheuristic algorithms, PSO has limitations, such as a propensity to become trapped in local minima and an uneven distribution of effort between exploration and exploitation stages. A novel local search technique called QPSOL, based on PSO is the proposed solution to mitigate these issues. QPSOL aims to increase diversity and achieve a closer balance between the exploration and exploitation phases. The QPSOL incorporates a dynamic optimization strategy to enhance the method's efficiency. Unlike the novel local search strategy, which uses a new local search approach (LSA) to break out of local optima, QPSOL employs quadratic interpolation around the optimal search agent to enhance its exploitation capability and solution accuracy. These strategies complement each other and contribute to boosting PSO's convergence efficiency while seeking to balance exploration and exploitation. The proposed method is assessed using the IEEE CEC'2021 test suite, and its efficacy is evaluated against other metaheuristics and cutting-edge algorithms to determine its trustworthiness. The optimal parameters of three PV models are determined using the proposed technique and compared to different well-established algorithms. Systematic comparisons show that QPSOL is competitive with, and often outperforms, commonly used methods in research for predicting model parameters.

A novel hybrid Coyote–Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for three-dimensional constrained trajectory planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been considered the future of transportation systems. However, mostly the reported optimizers struggle to estimate the flyable trajectories within acceptable accuracy and time bound under various constraints, particularly in a complex 3D environment. Therefore, this work proposes a novel hybrid optimizer (HCPSOA) by combining the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Coyote Optimization Algorithm (COA). Further, the chaotic logistic map and dynamic weight adjustments have been incorporated to enhance the exploration–exploitation capabilities. After validating the promising performance of HCPSOA against popular metaheuristics (COA, PSO, Improved COA, Glowworm Swarm Optimization, and Hybrid Fireworks PSO) for several benchmark functions, the proposed HCPSOA has been employed to estimate the flyable path by formulating a novel cost function and smoothened by cubic B-spline curve. The simulated results reveal that the HCPSOA provide a non-colliding path with up to 10.00% lesser average cost for the considered real world scenario (map 3), which confirms its supremacy for the estimation of the safe and flyable relative to other compared algorithms.

Adaptive Guided Equilibrium Optimizer with Spiral Search Mechanism to Solve Global Optimization Problems.

The equilibrium optimizer (EO) is a recently developed physics-based optimization technique for complex optimization problems. Although the algorithm shows excellent exploitation capability, it still has some drawbacks, such as the tendency to fall into local optima and poor population diversity. To address these shortcomings, an enhanced EO algorithm is proposed in this paper. First, a spiral search mechanism is introduced to guide the particles to more promising search regions. Then, a new inertia weight factor is employed to mitigate the oscillation phenomena of particles. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, it has been tested on the CEC2017 test suite and the mobile robot path planning (MRPP) problem and compared with some advanced metaheuristic techniques. The experimental results demonstrate that our improved EO algorithm outperforms the comparison methods in solving both numerical optimization problems and practical problems. Overall, the developed EO variant has good robustness and stability and can be considered as a promising optimization tool.

Overlapping peak separation algorithm for ion mobility spectra based on multistrategy JAYA.

In the field of separation science, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) plays an important role as an analytical tool. However, the lack of sufficient structural resolution is a common problem in qualitative and quantitative analysis using IMS. A method is needed to solve the problem of overlapping peaks caused by insufficient resolution. The method uses multiple strategies to more effectively use population information to balance exploration and exploitation capabilities, prevent local optimization, accurately resolve overlapping peaks, quickly obtain optimal spectral peak model coefficients, and accurately identify compounds. Multistrategy JAYA algorithm's (MSJAYA) performance is compared with improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO), dynamic inertia weight particle swarm optimization (DIWPSO), and multiobjective dynamic teaching-learning-based optimization (MDTLBO). The analysis shows that MSJAYA's maximum separation error is within 0.6%, a level of accuracy not guaranteed by the other algorithms. In addition, the separation error fluctuates within a much smaller range, demonstrating MSJAYA's superior robustness. Compared with other overlapping peak separation algorithms, MSJAYA is more applicable because no special parameters are used. The method allows fast deconvolution analysis of strong overlapping peaks with multiple components, which greatly improves the resolution of IMS.

A Multiple Mechanism Enhanced Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm for Numerical Problems.

The Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm (AOA) is a meta-heuristic algorithm inspired by mathematical operators, which may stagnate in the face of complex optimization issues. Therefore, the convergence and accuracy are reduced. In this paper, an AOA variant called ASFAOA is proposed by integrating a double-opposite learning mechanism, an adaptive spiral search strategy, an offset distribution estimation strategy, and a modified cosine acceleration function formula into the original AOA, aiming to improve the local exploitation and global exploration capability of the original AOA. In the proposed ASFAOA, a dual-opposite learning strategy is utilized to enhance population diversity by searching the problem space a lot better. The spiral search strategy of the tuna swarm optimization is introduced into the addition and subtraction strategy of AOA to enhance the AOA's ability to jump out of the local optimum. An offset distribution estimation strategy is employed to effectively utilize the dominant population information for guiding the correct individual evolution. In addition, an adaptive cosine acceleration function is proposed to perform a better balance between the exploitation and exploration capabilities of the AOA. To demonstrate the superiority of the proposed ASFAOA, two experiments are conducted using existing state-of-the-art algorithms. First, The CEC 2017 benchmark function was applied with the aim of evaluating the performance of ASFAOA on the test function through mean analysis, convergence analysis, stability analysis, Wilcoxon signed rank test, and Friedman's test. The proposed ASFAOA is then utilized to solve the wireless sensor coverage problem and its performance is illustrated by two sets of coverage problems with different dimensions. The results and discussion show that ASFAOA outperforms the original AOA and other comparison algorithms. Therefore, ASFAOA is considered as a useful technique for practical optimization problems.

A decomposition-based memetic algorithm to solve the biobjective green flexible job shop scheduling problem with interval type-2 fuzzy processing time

With increasing environmental awareness, energy consumption of industries is becoming a popular research topic. In industrial manufacturing, processing time is highly uncertain. This study investigates a green flexible job shop scheduling problem with interval type-2 fuzzy processing time (IT2GFJSP) with the objectives of makespan and energy consumption. To solve this problem, a decomposition-based memetic algorithm (DBMA) is used. In the proposed approach, (1) five initial rules are presented to generate a high-quality population; (2) crossover and mutation operators are designed to increase the exploration capability; (3) three effective neighborhood structures are designed to increase the exploitation capability; and (4) a new Tchebycheff aggregation method based on a subproblem decomposition-based (SDB) strategy is proposed to select high-quality individuals and design acceptance criterion. The improved performance of this method is demonstrated by comparison with two other effective methods. To verify the effectiveness of DBMA, it is compared with five other famous algorithms on 30 benchmarks. Computational results show that the DBMA can obtain better solutions than other algorithms when solving the IT2GFJSP.

Non-linear Channel Equalization using Modified Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm

In this paper, a modified grasshopper optimization algorithm is proposed for equalization of non-linear wireless communication channels. Even though grasshopper optimisation algorithm (GOA) is an efficient algorithm, it gets trapped into local optima after some iterations due to loss of swarm diversity. Furthermore, GOA does not involve any provision to retain the elite grasshoppers found so far at each index which weakens the exploitation capability and convergence rate of GOA. These limitations of GOA are alleviated in this paper by incorporating three key modifications into GOA. A threshold parameter is introduced to detect the inefficient search region. Lévy Flight is integrated with the basic GOA to improve the diversity of grasshopper swarm and the greedy selection operator is used to preserve the elite grasshoppers found so far at every index. The superiority of a modified grasshopper optimization algorithm (MGOA) is illustrated over the existing metaheuristic algorithms. The key parameters of MGOA are selected by performing the sensitivity analysis. The simulation results on four non-linear channels demonstrate the equalization capability of the proposed MGOA in terms of MSE and BER performance. A statistical validity of results provided by MGOA is confirmed through Wilcoxon rank-sum test.

A Pareto-Based Discrete Jaya Algorithm for Multiobjective Carbon-Efficient Distributed Blocking Flow Shop Scheduling Problem

Carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, which are significant strategies for national sustainable development, have attracted enormous attention from researchers in the manufacturing domain. A Pareto-based discrete Jaya algorithm (PDJaya) is proposed to solve the carbon-efficient distributed blocking flow shop scheduling problem (CEDBFSP) with the criteria of total tardiness and total carbon emission in this paper. The mixed-integer linear programming model is presented for the CEDBFSP. An effective constructive heuristic is produced to generate the initial population. The new individual is generated by the update mechanism of PDJaya. The self-adaptive operator local search strategy is designed to enhance the exploitation capability of PDJaya. A critical-path-based carbon saving strategy is introduced to further reduce carbon emissions. The effectiveness of each strategy in the PDJaya is verified and compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms in the benchmark suite. The numerical results demonstrate that the PDJaya is the efficient optimizer for solving the CEDBFSP.

A Cooperative Scatter Search With Reinforcement Learning Mechanism for the Distributed Permutation Flowshop Scheduling Problem With Sequence-Dependent Setup Times

The integration of reinforcement learning technology into meta-heuristic algorithms to address complex combinatorial optimization problems has attracted much attention in recent years. A cooperative scatter search with <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Q$</tex-math> </inline-formula> -learning mechanism (QCSS) is proposed for solving the DPFSP-SDST. In the diversification generation method, two effective heuristic algorithms are designed to construct an initial population with high quality and diversity. In the improved method, eight domain knowledge-guided perturbation operators are combined with <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Q$</tex-math> </inline-formula> -learning to balance the exploration and exploitation capabilities of the QCSS algorithm. The reference set <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(\mathrm{RefSet})$</tex-math> </inline-formula> is divided into two subpopulations, and adaptive competition is adopted between the subpopulations to enhance search efficiency. In addition, a restart mechanism is proposed in the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{RefSet}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> update phase to ensure the diversity of solutions. The performance of the QCSS algorithm is verified on the benchmark set, and the experimental results demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness of the QCSS algorithm.

A New Golden Eagle Optimization with Stooping Behaviour for Photovoltaic Maximum Power Tracking under Partial Shading

Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems often encounter a problem called partial shading condition (PSC), which causes a significant decrease in the system’s output power. To address this issue, meta-heuristic algorithms (MHAs) can be used to perform maximum power point tracking (MPPT) on the system’s multiple-peak P-V curves due to PSCs. Particle swarm optimization was one of the first MHA methods to be implemented for MPPT. However, PSO has some drawbacks, including long settling time and sustained PV output power oscillations during tracking. Hence, some improved MHA methods have been proposed. One approach is to combine a MHA with a deterministic approach (DA) such as P &amp; O method. However, such a hybrid method is more complex to implement. Also, the transition criteria from a DA to a MHA and vice versa is sometimes difficult to define. Another approach, as adapted in this paper is to modify the existing MHAs. This includes modifying the search operators or the parameter settings, to enhance exploration or exploitation capabilities of MHAs. This paper proposed to incorporate the stooping behaviour in the golden eagle optimization (GEO) algorithm. Stooping is in fact a hunting technique frequently employed by golden eagles. Inclusion of stooping in the GEO algorithm not only truly model golden eagles’ hunting behaviour but also yields great performance. Stooping behavior only requires one extra parameter. Nevertheless, on average, the proposed method can reduce tracking time by 42.41% and improve dynamic tracking accuracy by 1.95%, compared to GEO. Moreover, compared to PSO, GWO, and BA, the proposed method achieves an improvement of 2.66%, 3.56%, and 4.24% in dynamic tracking accuracy, respectively.

End fire linear antenna array synthesis using differential evolution inspired Adaptive Naked Mole Rat Algorithm

Linear antenna arrays (LAAs) play a critical role in smart system communication applications such as the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile communication and beamforming. However, minimizing secondary lobes while maintaining a low beamwidth remains challenging. This study presents an enhanced synthesis methodology for LAAs using the Adaptive Naked Mole Rat Algorithm (ANMRA). ANMRA, inspired by mole-rat mating habits, improves exploration and exploitation capabilities for directive LAA applications. The performance of ANMRA is assessed using the CEC 2019 benchmark test functions, a widely adopted standard for statistical evaluation in optimization algorithms. The proposed methodology results are also benchmarked against state-of-the-art algorithms, including the Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA), Cuckoo Search (CS), Artificial Hummingbird Algorithm (AHOA), Chimp Optimization Algorithm (ChOA), and Naked Mole Rat Algorithm (NMRA). The results demonstrate that ANMRA achieves superior performance among the benchmarked algorithms by successfully minimizing secondary lobes and obtaining a narrow beamwidth. The ANMRA controlled design achieves the lowest Side Lobe Level (SLL) of − 37.08 dB and the smallest beamwidth of 74.68°. The statistical assessment using the benchmark test functions further confirms the effectiveness of ANMRA. By optimizing antenna element magnitude and placement control, ANMRA enables precise primary lobe placement, grating lobe elimination, and high directivity in LAAs. This research contributes to advancing smart system communication technologies, particularly in the context of IoT and beamforming applications, by providing an enhanced synthesis methodology for LAAs that offers improved performance in terms of secondary lobe reduction and beamwidth optimization.

Multi-objective energy-efficient hybrid flow shop scheduling using Q-learning and GVNS driven NSGA-II

The urgent mission for carbon peak and carbon neutrality is demanding greater industrial sustainability. Energy-efficient hybrid flow shop scheduling problem (EEHFSP) has been raising increasing attention in recent years. This paper studies a new EEHFSP with uniform machines to minimize total tardiness, total energy cost, and carbon trading cost. Time-of-use tariffs and power down strategies are simultaneously adopted. A novel multi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear programming model for the problem is proposed. To solve the model, we propose a Q-learning and general variable neighborhood search (GVNS) driven non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (QVNS-NSGA-II). The novelty of the algorithm is that we incorporate Q-learning into GVNS to guide premium adaptive operator selection throughout the shaking and local search processes. A distinguishing feature is that the states and actions of Q-learning are set as neighborhood structures and local search operators. The Q-learning-driven GVNS is embedded into NSGA-II to promote the exploration and exploitation capability. Experimental results show that the proposed QVNS-NSGA-II outperforms NSGA-II, improved Jaya, and modified MOEA/D in terms of the quantity, quality of Pareto solutions, and computational efficiency. Sensitivity analysis also derives several managerial implications. The proposed approach can be applied to improve sustainability and productivity for hybrid flow shop manufacturers.

Developments on metaheuristic-based optimization for numerical and engineering optimization problems: Analysis, design, validation, and applications

Optimization problems are prevalent in a variety of real-world applications, including medical, engineering, chemical, and others, and must be precisely solved to enhance the performance of these applications. Unfortunately, finding near-optimal solutions to these problems is regarded as a hard challenge due to their various characteristics. In a new attempt to solve these problems, this paper presents a new variant of the artificial gorilla troops optimizer (GTO) called ranking-based GTO (RGTO). This variant uses two strategies known as the ranking-based update strategy and the convergence acceleration strategy to improve both the classical GTO's exploitation and exploration capabilities. The first strategy is proposed to enhance each gorilla's local and global search abilities, whereas the latter is intended to enhance GTO's global search abilities to reach better solutions as quickly as possible. First, a recent and challenging benchmark, namely CEC-2017, is utilized to assess the RGTO's explorative and exploitative capabilities. After that, RGTO is used to solve three engineering optimization problems, including parameter estimation problems for both photovoltaic (PV) models and proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), as well as some engineering design problems, to demonstrate how well it performs for real-world optimization problems. Compared to several rival optimizers, the proposed algorithm provides outstanding outcomes for the three engineering optimization benchmark problems considered.

A Discrete JAYA Algorithm Based on Reinforcement Learning and Simulated Annealing for the Traveling Salesman Problem

The JAYA algorithm is a population-based meta-heuristic algorithm proposed in recent years which has been proved to be suitable for solving global optimization and engineering optimization problems because of its simplicity, easy implementation, and guiding characteristic of striving for the best and avoiding the worst. In this study, an improved discrete JAYA algorithm based on reinforcement learning and simulated annealing (QSA-DJAYA) is proposed to solve the well-known traveling salesman problem in combinatorial optimization. More specially, firstly, the basic Q-learning algorithm in reinforcement learning is embedded into the proposed algorithm such that it can choose the most promising transformation operator for the current state to update the solution. Secondly, in order to balance the exploration and exploitation capabilities of the QSA-DJAYA algorithm, the Metropolis acceptance criterion of the simulated annealing algorithm is introduced to determine whether to accept candidate solutions. Thirdly, 3-opt is applied to the best solution of the current iteration at a certain frequency to improve the efficiency of the algorithm. Finally, to evaluate the performance of the QSA-DJAYA algorithm, it has been tested on 21 benchmark datasets taken from TSPLIB and compared with other competitive algorithms in two groups of comparative experiments. The experimental and the statistical significance test results show that the QSA-DJAYA algorithm achieves significantly better results in most instances.

An Improved Tuning of PID Controller for PV Battery-Powered Brushless DC Motor Speed Regulation Using Hybrid Horse Herd Particle Swarm Optimization

In this study, speed control of PV battery-powered brushless DC motor (BLDC) is controlled by novel hybrid horse herd particle swarm optimization- (HHHPSO-) tuned proportional integral derivative (PID) controller. The optimal gain parameter of the PID controller is tuned by hybrid horse herd optimization algorithm. The purpose of the newly developed HHHPSO algorithm is to enhance the performance of the classic horse herd algorithm (HHA), specifically in two different ways. In the first place, it bolsters HHA’s aptitude for exploratory learning related to the ageing issue. By doing so, it is possible to circumvent the phenomenon of the local minimum stagnation. Second, it permits HHA to have a superior capability of exploitation with the assistance of hybridization through the utilisation of particle swarm optimization. This hybrid technique helps improve the rate convergences of the HHA method. The time domain-based performance indices were considered as an objective function such as addition of integral of squared speed error, integral of squared current error, and integral of squared electromagnetic torque error for finding the optimal gain values for the PID controller using HHHPSO. The proposed HHHPSO-tuned PID controller for PV battery-powered BLDC motor is tested for various working conditions such as constant speed conditions, varying speed conditions, and varying load conditions and also compared with state-of-the-art method. The proposed method has quick rise time around 20-21 msec, quick settling time around 35-39 msec, zero steady-state error, and zero overshoot than state-of-the-art optimization method. The proposed control techniques were also tested in hardware to confirm the suitability for real-time applications.

An Enhanced Flower Pollination Algorithm with Gaussian Perturbation for Node Location of a WSN.

Localization is one of the essential problems in internet of things (IoT) and wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. However, most traditional range-free localization algorithms cannot fulfill the practical demand for high localization accuracy. Therefore, a localization algorithm based on an enhanced flower pollination algorithm (FPA) with Gaussian perturbation (EFPA-G) and the DV-Hop method is proposed.FPA is widely applied, but premature convergence still cannot be avoided. How to balance its global exploration and local exploitation capabilities still remains an outstanding problem. Therefore, the following improvement schemes are introduced. A search strategy based on Gaussian perturbation is proposed to solve the imbalance between the global exploration and local exploitation search capabilities. Meanwhile, to fully exploit the variability of population information, an enhanced strategy is proposed based on optimal individual and Lévy flight. Finally, in the experiments with 26 benchmark functions and WSN simulations, the former verifies that the proposed algorithm outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of convergence and search capability. In the simulation experiment, the best value for the normalized mean squared error obtained by the most advanced algorithm, RACS, is 20.2650%, and the best value for the mean distance error is 5.07E+00. However, EFPA-G reached 19.5182% and 4.88E+00, respectively. It is superior to existing algorithms in terms of positioning, accuracy, and robustness.

Dynamic Coati Optimization Algorithm for Biomedical Classification Tasks

Medical datasets are primarily made up of numerous pointless and redundant elements in a collection of patient records. None of these characteristics are necessary for a medical decision-making process. Conversely, a large amount of data leads to increased dimensionality and decreased classifier performance in terms of machine learning. Numerous approaches have recently been put out to address this issue, and the results indicate that feature selection can be a successful remedy. To meet the various needs of input patterns, medical diagnostic tasks typically involve learning a suitable categorization model. The k-Nearest Neighbors algorithm (kNN) classifier’s classification performance is typically decreased by the input variables’ abundance of irrelevant features. To simplify the kNN classifier, essential attributes of the input variables have been searched using the feature selection approach. This paper presents the Coati Optimization Algorithm (DCOA) in a dynamic form as a feature selection technique where each iteration of the optimization process involves the introduction of a different feature. We enhance the exploration and exploitation capability of DCOA by employing dynamic opposing candidate solutions. The most impressive feature of DCOA is that it does not require any preparatory parameter fine-tuning to the most popular metaheuristic algorithms. The CEC’22 test suite and nine medical datasets with various dimension sizes were used to evaluate the performance of the original COA and the proposed dynamic version. The statistical results were validated using the Bonferroni–Dunn test and Kendall’s W test and showed the superiority of DCOA over seven well-known metaheuristic algorithms with an overall accuracy of 89.7%, a feature selection of 24%, a sensitivity of 93.35% a specificity of 96.81%, and a precision of 93.90%.

Agricultural UAV trajectory planning by incorporating multi-mechanism improved grey wolf optimization algorithm

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) trajectory planning plays an essential role in agricultural production and biological control. To solve the agricultural UAV trajectory planning problem, a multi-mechanism collaborative improved grey wolf optimization algorithm (NAS-GWO) is proposed. In NAS-GWO, the evolutionary boundary constraint processing mechanism is introduced to update the position of the grey wolf individuals that cross the boundary in time to retain the position information of the optimal individuals to the largest degree to enhance the search accuracy of the algorithm. Then, the Gaussian mutation strategy and spiral function are used as perturbation mechanisms to help the algorithm jump out of the local optimum in time to strengthen the exploitation capability of NAS-GWO. Meanwhile, the improved Sigmoid function is used as a nonlinear convergence factor for balancing the exploitation and exploration of the NAS-GWO. By comparing NAS-GWO with ten advanced metaheuristic algorithms on 20 CEC2017 benchmark functions, the experimental results show that the NAS-GWO algorithm has superior merit seeking and robustness. Moreover, the agricultural UAV trajectory planning problem is solved using NAS-GWO. The experimental results show that the NAS-GWO algorithm plans a more viable and stable trajectory path in four different scale missions, while the most important is that it requires less cost. Among them, the algorithm reduces 27.93%, 38.15%, 32.32%, 34.11%, 10.63%, and 13.48% on average in cost function values compared to Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), Aquila Optimizer (AO), Differential Evolution (DE), Dung Beetle Optimizer (DBO), and Grey Wolf Optimization algorithm (GWO), thus proving the effectiveness and significance of NAS-GWO in the agricultural UAV trajectory path planning problem.

Quantum-inspired African vultures optimization algorithm with elite mutation strategy for production scheduling problems

Abstract The production scheduling (PS) problem is a challenging task that involves assigning manufacturing resources to jobs while ensuring that all constraints are satisfied. The key difficulty in PS is determining the appropriate order of operations. In this study, we propose a novel optimization algorithm called the quantum-inspired African vultures optimization algorithm with an elite mutation strategy (QEMAVOA) to address this issue. QEMAVOA is an enhanced version of the African vulture optimization algorithm that incorporates three new improvement strategies. Firstly, to enhance QEMAVOA’s diversification ability, the population diversity is enriched by the introduction of quantum double-chain encoding in the initialization phase of QEMAVOA. Secondly, the implementation of the quantum rotating gate will balance QEMAVOA’s diversification and exploitation capabilities, leading the vulture to a better solution. Finally, with the purpose of improving the exploitability of QEMAVOA, the elite mutation strategy is introduced. To evaluate the performance of QEMAVOA, we apply it to two benchmark scheduling problems: flexible job shop scheduling problem and parallel machine scheduling. The results are compared to those of existing algorithms in the literature. The test results reveal that QEMAVOA surpasses comparison algorithms in accuracy, stability, and speed of convergence.

The palm tree optimization: Algorithm and applications

A novel metaheuristic algorithm has been presented based on the physical significance of palm tree leaves and petioles, which can themselves water and fertilize with their unique architecture. Palm tree leaves collect almost all the raindrops that fall on the tree, which drags the nutrient-rich dropping of crawlers and birds that inhabit it and funnel them back to the palm tree’s roots. The proposed Palm Tree Optimization (PTO) algorithm is based on two main stages of rainwater before it reaches the trunk. Stage one is that the rainwater drops search for petioles in the local search space of a particular leaf, and stage two involves that the rainwater drops after reaching the petioles search for trunk to funnel back to the root along with nutrients. The performance of PTO in searching for global optima is tested on 33 Standard Benchmark Functions (SBF), 29 constrained optimization problems from IEEE-CEC2017 and real-world optimization problems from IEEE-CEC2011 competition especially for testing the evolutionary algorithms. Mathematical benchmark functions are classified into six groups as unimodal, multimodal, plate &amp; valley-shaped, steep ridges, hybrid functions and composition functions which are used to check the exploration and exploitation capabilities of the algorithm. The experimental results prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm with better search ability over different classes of benchmark functions and real-world applications.