Development and investigation of efficient artificial bee colony algorithm for numerical function optimization

Artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC), which is inspired by the foraging behavior of honey bee swarm, is a biological-inspired optimization. It shows more effective than genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and ant colony optimization (ACO). However, ABC is good at exploration but poor at exploitation, and its convergence speed is also an issue in some cases. For these insufficiencies, we propose an improved ABC algorithm called I-ABC. In I-ABC, the best-so-far solution, inertia weight and acceleration coefficients are introduced to modify the search process. Inertia weight and acceleration coefficients are defined as functions of the fitness. In addition, to further balance search processes, the modification forms of the employed bees and the onlooker ones are different in the second acceleration coefficient. Experiments show that, for most functions, the I-ABC has a faster convergence speed and better performances than each of ABC and the gbest-guided ABC (GABC). But I-ABC could not still substantially achieve the best solution for all optimization problems. In a few cases, it could not find better results than ABC or GABC. In order to inherit the bright sides of ABC, GABC and I-ABC, a high-efficiency hybrid ABC algorithm, which is called PS-ABC, is proposed. PS-ABC owns the abilities of prediction and selection. Results show that PS-ABC has a faster convergence speed like I-ABC and better search ability than other relevant methods for almost all functions.

Graphical abstractThe proposed PS-ABC algorithm inherits the bright sides of other relevant methods, and simultaneously has the abilities of prediction and selection. Results show that PS-ABC has an extremely fast convergence speed like I-ABC and good search ability.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slideHighlights► We proposed two improved artificial bee colony algorithms: I-ABC and PS-ABC. ► In I-ABC, some new characters are introduced into the search forms. ► The hybrid algorithm PS-ABC inherits the bright sides of ABC, GABC and I-ABC. ► The PS-ABC owns the abilities of prediction and selection. ► The two new methods have extremely fast convergence speeds and good search abilities.