Artificial bee colony algorithm with strategy and parameter adaptation for global optimization

The artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm has been successfully applied to solve a wide range of real-world optimization problems. However, the success of ABC in solving a specific problem crucially depends on appropriately choosing the foraging strategies and its associated parameters. In this paper, we propose a strategy and parameter self-adaptive selection ABC algorithm (SPaABC), in which both employed bees search strategies and their associated control parameter values are gradually self-adaptive by learning from their previous experiences in generating promising solutions. In order to verify the performance of our approach, SPaABC algorithm is compared to many recently related algorithms on eighteen benchmark functions. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm achieves competitive performance on most test instances.

     

An improved artificial bee colony algorithm based on the strategy of global reconnaissance

The artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is a recently introduced swarm intelligence optimization algorithm based on the foraging behavior of a honeybee colony. However, many problems are encountered in the ABC algorithm, such as premature convergence and low solution precision. Moreover, it can easily become stuck at local optima. The scout bees start to search for food sources randomly and then they share nectar information with other bees. Thus, this paper proposes a global reconnaissance foraging swarm optimization algorithm that mimics the intelligent foraging behavior of scouts in nature. First, under the new scouting search strategies, the scouts conduct global reconnaissance around the assigned subspace, which is effective to avoid premature convergence and local optima. Second, the scouts guide other bees to search in the neighborhood by applying heuristic information about global reconnaissance. The cooperation between the honeybees will contribute to the improvement of optimization performance and solution precision. Finally, the prediction and selection mechanism is adopted to further modify the search strategies of the employed bees and onlookers. Therefore, the search performance in the neighborhood of the local optimal solution is enhanced. The experimental results conducted on 52 typical test functions show that the proposed algorithm is more effective in avoiding premature convergence and improving solution precision compared with some other ABCs and several state-of-the-art algorithms. Moreover, this algorithm is suitable for optimizing high-dimensional space optimization problems, with very satisfactory outcomes.     

具有双重认知能力的人工蜂群算法及性能分析

针对人工蜂群算法在解决单峰问题时收敛速度过慢而在优化多峰问题时易陷入局部最优值的问题,依据群体动力学原理,引入"自我认知能力"和"社会认知能力"对蜂群觅食时的蜜源搜索策略进行改进,提出了具有双重认知策略的人工蜂群算法。用经典的标准测试函数进行了实验并与其他改进算法进行了比较,结果表明,改进的搜索策略提高了算法的优化能力,优于其他改进的人工蜂群算法。     

基于精英蜂群搜索策略的人工蜂群算法

针对人工蜂群(ABC)算法存在收敛速度慢、求解精度不高、容易陷入局部最优等问题,利用蜂群觅食过程中先由侦察蜂进行四处侦察食物,并利用蜂群搜索构建精英群体指导蜂群觅食寻优。据此,提出了一种模拟侦察蜂侦察觅食行为的基于精英蜂群搜索策略的连续优化算法。算法利用构建精英蜂群策略、改进侦察蜂搜索机制以及基于目标函数值选择寻优三个主要策略加强算法的搜索机制。数值实验表明,所提算法不仅寻优精度和寻优率非常高,且收敛速度快,并能适于高维空间的优化问题。     

蜂群算法研究综述*

蜂群算法是一种模仿蜜蜂繁殖、采蜜等行为的新兴的群智能优化技术,近几年备受研究者关注。初步探讨了蜂群算法的理论基础,详细论述了基于蜜蜂繁殖行为和采蜜行为的两类蜂群算法的生物学机理及其最常见算法的应用研究情况,并分析比较了遗传算法、蚁群算法、粒子群算法和蜂群算法的优缺点、适用范围及性能。最后,总结了现有蜂群算法存在的问题,并指出其未来的研究方向。     

Bee colony optimization for combined heat and power economic dispatch

This paper presents a novel optimization approach to the combined heat and power economic dispatch problem by using bee colony optimization algorithm. The algorithm is a swarm-based algorithm inspired by the food foraging behavior of honey bees. The performance of the proposed algorithm is validated by illustration with a test system. The results of the proposed approach are compared with those of particle swarm optimization, real-coded genetic algorithm and evolutionary programing techniques. From numerical results, it is seen that bee colony optimization based approach is able to provide a better solution at a lesser computational effort.     

基于信息熵的改进人工蜂群算法

为了克服人工蜂群算法在处理复杂性问题时收敛速度慢、收敛精度不高、易早熟等缺陷,在原始人工蜂群算法的基础上引入信息熵。信息熵本身是不确定性的一种度量,由信息熵的值来度量人工蜂群算法中跟随蜂选择的不确定性,通过控制信息熵的值达到控制算法中跟随蜂选择过程的目的,实现算法的自适应调节。通过对测试函数和不同规模TSP问题的模拟仿真,对人工蜂群算法、蚁群算法和其他改进方法进行了对比,验证了所提出改进方法的可行性和有效性。     

Tent 混沌人工蜂群与粒子群混合算法

针对人工蜂群和粒子群算法的优势与缺陷,提出一种Tent混沌人工蜂群粒子群混合算法.首先利用Tent混沌反向学习策略初始化种群;然后划分双子群,利用Tent混沌人工蜂群算法和粒子群算法协同进化;最后应用重组算子选择最优个体作为跟随蜂的邻域蜜源和粒子群的全局极值.仿真结果表明,该算法不仅能有效避免早熟收敛,而且能有效跳出局部极值,与其他最新人工蜂群和粒子群算法相比具有较强的全局搜索能力和局部搜索能力.     

基于分治策略的改进人工蜂群算法

人工蜂群(ABC)算法存在着收敛速度不够快、易陷入局部最优的缺陷。针对这一问题,提出一种改进的人工蜂群(DCABC)算法。应用反学习的初始化方法产生初始解,引入分治策略对蜜源进行优化,在采蜜蜂发布更新的蜜源信息后,跟随蜂选择最优蜜源,并采用分治策略进行迭代优化。通过对经典测试函数的反复实验及与其他算法的比较,表明了所提出的算法具有良好的加速收敛效果,提高了全局搜索能力与效率。     

Performance assessment of foraging algorithms vs. evolutionary algorithms

The class of foraging algorithms is a relatively new field based on mimicking the foraging behavior of animals, insects, birds or fish in order to develop efficient optimization algorithms. The artificial bee colony (ABC), the bees algorithm (BA), ant colony optimization (ACO), and bacterial foraging optimization algorithms (BFOA) are examples of this class to name a few. This work provides a complete performance assessment of the four mentioned algorithms in comparison to the widely known differential evolution (DE), genetic algorithms (GAs), harmony search (HS), and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms when applied to the problem of unconstrained nonlinear continuous function optimization. To the best of our knowledge, most of the work conducted so far using foraging algorithms has been tested on classical functions. This work provides the comparison using the well-known CEC05 benchmark functions based on the solution reached, the success rate, and the performance rate.     

混沌搜索策略的改进人工蜂群算法

针对人工蜂群算法的蜂群缺乏多样性、全局和局部搜索能力差及收敛速度较慢,提出一种基于混沌搜索策略的改进人工蜂群算法。该算法通过载波映射,由混沌-决策变量的变换,产生新的邻域点,为采蜜蜂和被招募的观察蜂提供了更广阔的搜索空间和更优质的位置蜜源,增强蜂群多样性;同时,引进侦查蜂局部蜜源搜索较好地解决了算法易陷入局部极小的问题,改善了人工蜂群算法的收敛性能。最后由6个标准测试函数的仿真验证,得到基于混沌搜索策略的人工蜂群算法性能明显优于标准人工蜂群算法。     

A dynamic multi-colony artificial bee colony algorithm for multi-objective optimization

This paper suggests a dynamic multi-colony multi-objective artificial bee colony algorithm (DMCMOABC) by using the multi-deme model and a dynamic information exchange strategy. In the proposed algorithm, K colonies search independently most of the time and share information occasionally. In each colony, there are S bees containing equal number of employed bees and onlooker bees. For each food source, the employed or onlooker bee will explore a temporary position generated by using neighboring information, and the better one determined by a greedy selection strategy is kept for the next iterations. The external archive is employed to store non-dominated solutions found during the search process, and the diversity over the archived individuals is maintained by using crowding-distance strategy. If a randomly generated number is smaller than the migration rate R, then an elite, defined as the intermediate individual with the maximum crowding-distance value, is identified and used to replace the worst food source in a randomly selected colony. The proposed DMCMOABC is evaluated on a set of unconstrained/constrained test functions taken from the CEC2009 special session and competition in terms of four commonly used metrics EPSILON, HV, IGD and SPREAD, and it is compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms by applying Friedman test on the mean of IGD. The test results show that DMCMOABC is significantly better than or at least comparable to its competitors for both unconstrained and constrained problems.     

Artificial bee colony algorithm with memory

Artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) is a new type of swarm intelligence methods which imitates the foraging behavior of honeybees. Due to its simple implementation with very small number of control parameters, many efforts have been done to explore ABC research in both algorithms and applications. In this paper, a new ABC variant named ABC with memory algorithm (ABCM) is described, which imitates a memory mechanism to the artificial bees to memorize their previous successful experiences of foraging behavior. The memory mechanism is applied to guide the further foraging of the artificial bees. Essentially, ABCM is inspired by the biological study of natural honeybees, rather than most of the other ABC variants that integrate existing algorithms into ABC framework. The superiority of ABCM is analyzed on a set of benchmark problems in comparison with ABC, quick ABC and several state-of-the-art algorithms.     

人工蜂群算法综述

近年来群智能算法发展较为迅速并解决了很多大规模的复杂问题。人工蜂群算法是一种新型的群智能算法, 以其很强的全局收敛性、贪婪启发式的搜索特征以及求解问题的快速性等优越的性能受到广泛关注。简单介绍了人工蜂群算 法提出的生物学背景;由蜜蜂觅食行为与现实问题的求解类比给出了该算法的建模思想;并详细介绍了人工蜂群算法实现的 算法模型;从基于算法的改进以及基于算法的应用两方面讨论了近年来很多学者对人工蜂群算法研究的现状;最后对人工蜂群 算法的研究进行展望,从算法的弱点分析提出了该算法改进的方向以及进一步应用的领域。     

Hybrid bee colony optimization for examination timetabling problems

Swarm intelligence is a branch of artificial intelligence that focuses on the actions of agents in self-organized systems. Researchers have proposed a bee colony optimization (BCO) algorithm as part of swarm intelligence. BCO is a meta-heuristic algorithm based on the foraging behavior of bees. This study presents a hybrid BCO algorithm for examination timetabling problems. Bees in the BCO algorithm perform two main actions: forward pass and backward pass. Each bee explores the search space in forward pass and then shares information with other bees in the hive in backward pass. This study found that a bee decides to be either a recruiter that searches for a food source or a follower that selects a recruiter bee to follow on the basis of roulette wheel selection. In forward pass, BCO is supported along with other local searches, including the Late Acceptance Hill Climbing and Simulated Annealing algorithms. We introduce three selection strategies (tournament, rank and disruptive selection strategies) for the follower bees to select a recruiter to maintain population diversity in backward pass. The disruptive selection strategy outperforms tournament and rank selections. We also introduce a self-adaptive mechanism to select a neighborhood structure to enhance the neighborhood search. The proposed algorithm is evaluated against the latest methodologies in the literature with respect to two standard examination timetabling problems, namely, uncapacitated and competition datasets. We demonstrate that the proposed algorithm produces one new best result on uncapacitated datasets and comparable results on competition datasets.     

具有自适应搜索策略的混合人工蜂群算法

基本人工蜂群算法及其搜索策略侧重探索,为增强算法的开发能力,提出一种具有自适应搜索策略的混合人工蜂群算法。将目标函数值信息和最优解引导信息引入搜索策略,提出具有自适应机制、开发能力强的搜索策略;为防止“早熟”现象,利用三个不同随机食物源和高斯分布,设计出全局探索能力较强的搜索策略。将两个搜索策略在雇佣蜂阶段混合以平衡算法的探索与开发能力,在观察蜂阶段使用具有自适应机制、开发能力强的搜索策略以加快收敛。与基本及具有代表性的改进人工蜂群算法在20个标准测试函数中进行对比实验,结果表明所提算法具有更好的搜索能力和更快的收敛速度。     

Hybrid sine cosine artificial bee colony algorithm for global optimization and image segmentation

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is an efficient biological-inspired optimization method, which mimics the foraging behavior of honey bees to solve the complex and nonlinear optimization problems. However, in some cases, it suffers from inefficient exploration, low exploitation and slow convergence rate. These shortcomings cause the problem of stagnation at local optimum which is dangerous in determining the true solution (optima) of the problem. Therefore, in the present paper, an attempt has been made toward the removal of the drawbacks from the classical ABC by proposing a novel hybrid method called SCABC algorithm. The SCABC algorithm hybridizes the ABC with sine cosine algorithm (SCA) to upgrade the level of exploitation and exploration in the classical ABC algorithm. The SCA is a recently introduced algorithm, which uses the trigonometric functions sine and cosine to perform the search. The validation of the SCABC algorithm is performed on a well-known benchmark set of 23 optimization problems. The various analysis metrics such as statistical, convergence and performance index analysis verify the better search ability of the SCABC as compared to classical ABC, SCA. The comparison with some other optimization algorithms demonstrates a comparatively better state of exploitation and exploration in the SCABC algorithm. Moreover, the SCABC is also employed on multilevel thresholding problems. The various performance measures demonstrate the efficacy of the SCABC algorithm in determining the optimal thresholds of gray images.

     

Fast artificial bee colony and its application to stereo correspondence

Nature-inspired meta-heuristics have gained popularity for solutions to many real-world complex problems, and the artificial bee colony algorithm is one of the most powerful optimisation methods among meta-heuristics. However, inefficient exploitation of onlooker bees prevents the artificial bee colony algorithm from finding the final result accurately and efficiently for complex problems. In this paper, a novel optimisation method is proposed based on the artificial bee colony algorithm. The proposed optimisation method adaptively exploits onlooker bees over generations. In addition, the proposed optimisation method is applied to a stereo-matching problem to minimise the segment-based integer energy function, which is also introduced in this paper. The experimental results show that the proposed optimisation method outperforms state-of-the-art population-based meta-heuristics, such as the genetic algorithm, differential evolution, conventional artificial bee colony, and clonal selection algorithm, for benchmark functions as well as for the stereo-matching problem.     

An upgraded artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm for constrained optimization problems

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm developed by Karaboga is a nature inspired metaheuristic based on honey bee foraging behavior. It was successfully applied to continuous unconstrained optimization problems and later it was extended to constrained design problems as well. This paper introduces an upgraded artificial bee colony (UABC) algorithm for constrained optimization problems. Our UABC algorithm enhances fine-tuning characteristics of the modification rate parameter and employs modified scout bee phase of the ABC algorithm. This upgraded algorithm has been implemented and tested on standard engineering benchmark problems and the performance was compared to the performance of the latest Akay and Karaboga’s ABC algorithm. Our numerical results show that the proposed UABC algorithm produces better or equal best and average solutions in less evaluations in all cases.     

具有自适应全局最优引导快速搜索策略的人工蜂群算法

针对人工蜂群算法存在开发与探索能力不平衡的缺点,提出了具有自适应全局最优引导快速搜索策略的改进算法.在该策略中,首先采蜜蜂利用自适应搜索方程平衡了不同搜索方法的探索和开发能力;其次跟随蜂利用全局最优引导邻域搜索方程对蜜源进行精细化搜索,以提高其收敛精度和全局搜索能力.14个标准测试函数的仿真结果表明,相比其他算法,所提出的改进算法有效平衡了算法的开发与探索能力,并提高了其最优解的精度及收敛速度.