Hybrid sine cosine algorithm for solving engineering optimization problems

Abstract

Engineering design optimization problems are difficult to solve because the objective function is often complex, with a mix of continuous and discrete design variables and various design constraints. Our research presents a novel hybrid algorithm that integrates the benefits of the sine cosine algorithm (SCA) and artificial bee colony (ABC) to address engineering design optimization problems. The SCA is a recently developed metaheuristic algorithm with many advantages, such as good search ability and reasonable execution time, but it may suffer from premature convergence. The enhanced SCA search equation is proposed to avoid this drawback and reach a preferable balance between exploitation and exploration abilities. In the proposed hybrid method, named HSCA, the SCA with improved search strategy and the ABC algorithm with two distinct search equations are run alternately during working on the same population. The ABC with multiple search equations can provide proper diversity in the population so that both algorithms complement each other to create beneficial cooperation from their merger. Certain feasibility rules are incorporated in the HSCA to steer the search towards feasible areas of the search space. The HSCA is applied to fifteen demanding engineering design problems to investigate its performance. The presented experimental results indicate that the developed method performs better than the basic SCA and ABC. The HSCA accomplishes pretty competitive results compared to other recent state-of-the-art methods.