Essential Modifications on Biogeography-Based Optimization Algorithm

Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is a new population-based evolutionary algorithm and is based on an old theory of island biogeography that explains the geographical distribution of biological organisms. BBO was introduced in 2008 and then a lot of modifications were employed to enhance its performance. This paper proposes two modifications; firstly, modifying the probabilistic selection process of the migration and mutation stages to give a fairly randomized selection for all the features of the islands. Secondly, the clear duplication process after the mutation stage is sized to avoid any corruption on the suitability index variables. The obtained results through wide variety range of test functions with different dimensions and complexities proved that the BBO performance can be enhanced effectively without using any complicated form of the immigration and emigration rates. This essential modification has to be considered as an initial step for any other modification.