AN ADVANCED VARIANT OF THE BAT ALGORITHM TO OPTIMISE THE WEIGHT OF TRUSS STRUCTURES

Abstract

This paper introduces an advanced variant of a metaheuristic that replicates the bat-hunting mechanism. The proposed algorithm is applied to solve the optimisation engineering problems with superior performance compared to the original bat algorithm (BA). As with other metaheuristics, BA is easy to implement in solving many problems with great flexibility. However, changing too quickly between the two processes, exploitation and exploration, could cause low performance in finding the real prey. Therefore, this study provides a novel of the loudness function to control the random walk of bats more efficiently. The proposed BA is tested to mathematical benchmarks and then applied to optimise the weight of the truss structure.