Impact of Lèvy Flight on Modern Meta-heuristic Optimizers
Research Abstract
In this paper, a variant based on Lèvy flight was proposed to enhance the performance of two recently
proposed optimizers. The first optimizer used in the study is Sine-Cosine Algorithm (SCA) while the second
is Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA). Both optimizers are composed of two phases of random walks in
each optimization iteration and both have stagnation and premature convergence problems. Lèvy flight
is used to replace the walk based on cosine function in the SCA and the spiral motion in the WOA as
well. The Lèvy-based search guarantees a fraction of solutions to be generated apart from the current
best solution and hence tolerates for optimizer stagnation, premature convergence, and allows for local
optima avoidance. A smooth control of the scale of the Lèvy random walk is also proposed to ensure a
smooth adaptation of exploration to exploitation switching. The proposed variants, as well as the original
algorithms, were benchmarked using a set of unimodal, multimodal, fixed-dimension multimodal and
composite benchmark functions. The evaluation is performed using a set of assessment indicators and
results prove the capability of the proposed variants to outperform the original optimizers.
Research Keywords
Whale optimization algorithm; Sine-cosine algorithm; Lèvy flight; Lèvy whale optimization algorithm; Lèvy sine-cosine algorithm