Multi-algorithm based evolutionary strategy with Adaptive Mutation Mechanism for Constraint Engineering Design Problems

This paper proposes a new multi-algorithm based evolution strategy with the addition of adaptive mutation operators for global optimization. The new algorithm namely Kepler meerkat naked (KMN) algorithm is based on Kepler's optimization algorithm (KOA), meerkat optimization algorithm (MOA), and naked mole-rat algorithm (NMRA), as the core algorithms and, grey wolf optimizer (GWO) and cuckoo search (CS) inspired equations for enhanced exploration and exploitation. The proposed algorithm uses six new mutation operators for parametric enhancements, and follows an iterative division mechanism for a balanced operation. A comparative analysis is done with respect to classical benchmarks, CEC 2014, CEC 2017, CEC 2019 and CEC 2022 benchmark datasets for performance evaluation. Six engineering design problems are also used to test the performance of the proposed KMN algorithm for constraint optimization. Apart from that, a binary version of KMN namely bKMN is also proposed, and ten feature selection datasets are used for performance evaluation. Performance testing of the KMN and bKMN algorithm is done with success history-based DE (SHADE), LSHADE-SPACMA, self-adaptive DE (SaDE), fast opposition-based learning golden jackal optimization (FROBL-GJO), LSHADE-EpSin, jSO, EBOwithCMAR, among others. Experimental and statistical results are performed using Wilcoxon's and Friedman's tests, and it has been found that the proposed algorithms are highly competitive in contrast to other algorithms under study.