Enhanced beetle antennae search algorithm for complex and unbiased optimization

Beetle Antennae Search algorithm is a kind of intelligent optimization algorithms, which has the advantages of few parameters and simplicity. However, due to its inherent limitations, BAS has poor performance in complex optimization problems. The existing improvements of BAS are mainly based on the utilization of multiple beetles or combining BAS with other algorithms. The present study improves BAS from its origin and keeps the simplicity of the algorithm. First, an adaptive step size reduction method is used to increase the usability of the algorithm, which is based on an accurate factor and curvilinearly reduces the step size; second, the calculated information of fitness functions during each iteration are fully utilized with a contemporary optimal update strategy to promote the optimization processes; third, the theoretical analysis of the multi-directional sensing method is conducted and utilized to further improve the efficiency of the algorithm. Finally, the proposed Enhanced Beetle Antennae Search algorithm is compared with many other algorithms based on unbiased test functions. The test functions are unbiased when their solution space does not contain simple patterns, which may be used to facilitate the searching processes. As a result, EBAS outperformed BAS with at least 1 orders of magnitude difference. The performance of EBAS was even better than several state-of-the-art swarm-based algorithms, such as Slime Mold Algorithm and Grey Wolf Optimization, with similar running times. In addition, a WSN coverage optimization problem is tested to demonstrate the applicability of EBAS on real-world optimizations.