An efficient biogeography based optimization algorithm for solving reliability optimization problems

The objective of this paper is to solve the reliability redundancy allocation problems of series–parallel system under the various nonlinear resource constraints using the penalty guided based biogeography based optimization. In this type of problem both the number of redundant components and the corresponding component reliability in each subsystem are to be decided simultaneously so as to maximize the reliability of the system. A parameter-free penalty function has been taken which encourages the algorithm to explore within the feasible region and the near feasible region, and discourage the infeasible solutions. Four benchmark problems with the reliability, redundancy allocation problems are taken to demonstrate the approach and it has been shown by comparison that the solutions by the approach are better than that of solutions available in the literature. Finally statistical simulation has been performed for supremacy the approach.