An enhanced honey bee mating optimization algorithm for design of side sway steel frames

Honeybee mating is a swarm-based meta-heuristic optimization method where the search algorithm is inspired by the process of mating in honeybees. In this paper, a new improved algorithm is proposed which performs remarkably better than the basic honeybee mating optimization process and is very competitive with other meta-heuristic optimization algorithms reported in the literature. The new algorithm, termed as enhanced honey bee mating optimization (EHBMO) algorithm, uses the concept of giving weight to distant candidates which are slightly less feasible than the current local candidates but may hold information about the location of global optima further afield. The robustness of the algorithm in terms of both solution quality and computational cost is proven by solving four design optimization problems of side sway steel frames.