Marine predator algorithm with elite strategies for engineering design problems

Marine predator algorithm (MPA) is a powerful metaheuristic optimization algorithm that shows effective convergence ability on complex benchmark functions. The combination of Brownian and Levy flight distributions directly affects the convergence strategy of MPA. Although MPA has good convergence performance, it is open to improvement as it falls to a local optimum and cannot comprehensively scan the search area during the exploration phase. In this study, MPA has been improved by integrating elite natural evolution and elite random mutation strategies. In addition, these two strategies are combined with Gaussian mutation. The proposed method in this study which is named as elite evolution strategy MPA (EEMPA) has achieved comprehensive scanning of the solution space and considerably reduced the risk of falling into the local optimum trap, with elite strategies. The effect of EEMPA has been tested with the CEC2017 and CEC2019 benchmark functions. EEMPA has been compared with some metaheuristic algorithms frequently used in the literature and gives promising results among the considered optimization methods. Furthermore, EEMPA has been examined for seven well-known real world engineering problems. When the results are compared with both classical MPA and enhanced MPA methods, EEMPA converges to better than the other methods.