Using Improved Hybrid Grey Wolf Algorithm Based on Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm Onlooker and Scout Bee Operators for Solving Optimization Problems

Abstract

AbstractGrey Wolf optimization (GWO) is a newly developed stochastic meta-heuristic technique motivated by nature. It shows potential in diverse optimization challenges. It replicates grey wolf hunting behaviour and social hierarchy, exploring the solution space similar to their natural process. The algorithm efficiently explores and converges to the optimal solution. However, a drawback of the standard GWO is its limited exploitation capability due to its exploration-focused iterations. This may hinder finding the optimal solution nearby, leading to lower local convergence rates and degraded solution quality. To address this, the GWO-Employed-Onlooker model suggests incorporating the onlooker and scout bee operators from the artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) during the position-changing stage of the grey wolves. This enhances exploitation capability, resulting in improved local convergence rates and better solution quality. The proposed method’s performance is evaluated on various optimization functions and compared their convergence rate to standard GWO, Genetic Algorithm (GA), Firefly Algorithm (FA), ABC, and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) techniques. The results demonstrate that the proposed strategy GWO-Employed-Onlooker is better, indicating that it is valuable in solving optimization problems.