Egyptian Vulture Optimization Algorithm – A New Nature Inspired Meta-heuristics for Knapsack Problem

In this paper we have introduced for the first time a new nature inspired meta-heuristics algorithm called Egyptian Vulture Optimization Algorithm which primarily favors combinatorial optimization problems. The algorithm is derived from the nature, behavior and key skills of the Egyptian Vultures for acquiring food for leading their livelihood. These spectacular, innovative and adaptive acts make Egyptian Vultures as one of the most intelligent of its kind among birds. The details of the bird’s habit and the mathematical modeling steps of the algorithm are illustrated demonstrating how the meta-heuristics can be applied for global solutions of the combinatorial optimization problems and has been studied on the traditional 0/1 Knapsack Problem (KSP) and tested for several datasets of different dimensions. The results of application of the algorithm on KSP datasets show that the algorithm works well w.r.t optimal value and provide the scope of utilization in similar kind of problems like path planning and other combinatorial optimization problems.