Salp swarm algorithm with crossover scheme and Lévy flight for global optimization

Salp swarm algorithm (SSA) is a meta-heuristic algorithm proposed in recent years, which shows certain advantages in solving some optimization tasks. However, with the increasing difficulty of solving the problem (e.g. multi-modal, high-dimensional), the convergence accuracy and stability of SSA algorithm decrease. In order to overcome the drawbacks, salp swarm algorithm with crossover scheme and Lévy flight (SSACL) is proposed. The crossover scheme and Lévy flight strategy are used to improve the movement patterns of salp leader and followers, respectively. Experiments have been conducted on various test functions, including unimodal, multimodal, and composite functions. The experimental results indicate that the proposed SSACL algorithm outperforms other advanced algorithms in terms of precision, stability, and efficiency. Furthermore, the Wilcoxon’s rank sum test illustrates the advantages of proposed method in a statistical and meaningful way.