Engineering Optimizations via Nature-Inspired Virtual Bee Algorithms

Many engineering applications often involve the minimization of some objective functions. In the case of multilevel optimizations or functions with many local minimums, the optimization becomes very difficult. Biology-inspired algorithms such as genetic algorithms are more effective than conventional algorithms under appropriate conditions. In this paper, we intend to develop a new virtual bee algorithm (VBA) to solve the function optimizations with the application in engineering problems. For the functions with two-parameters, a swarm of virtual bees are generated and start to move randomly in the phase space. These bees interact when they find some target nectar corresponding to the encoded values of the function. The solution for the optimization problem can be obtained from the intensity of bee interactions. The simulations of the optimization of De Jong’s test function and Keane’s multi-peaked bumpy function show that the one agent VBA is usually as effective as genetic algorithms and multiagent implementation optimizes more efficiently than conventional algorithms due to the parallelism of the multiple agents. Comparison with the other algorithms such as genetic algorithms will also be discussed in detail.