The Whale Optimization Algorithm

• The Whale Optimization Algorithm inspired by humpback whales is proposed.
• The WOA algorithm is benchmarked on 29 well-known test functions.
• The results on the unimodal functions show the superior exploitation of WOA.
• The exploration ability of WOA is confirmed by the results on multimodal functions.
• The results on structural design problems confirm the performance of WOA in practice.

This paper proposes a novel nature-inspired meta-heuristic optimization algorithm, called Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), which mimics the social behavior of humpback whales. The algorithm is inspired by the bubble-net hunting strategy. WOA is tested with 29 mathematical optimization problems and 6 structural design problems. Optimization results prove that the WOA algorithm is very competitive compared to the state-of-art meta-heuristic algorithms as well as conventional methods. The source codes of the WOA algorithm are publicly available at http://www.alimirjalili.com/WOA.html