An improved African vultures optimization algorithm based on tent chaotic mapping and time-varying mechanism

Metaheuristic optimization algorithms are one of the most effective methods for solving complex engineering problems. However, the performance of a metaheuristic algorithm is related to its exploration ability and exploitation ability. Therefore, to further improve the African vultures optimization algorithm (AVOA), a new metaheuristic algorithm, an improved African vultures optimization algorithm based on tent chaotic mapping and time-varying mechanism (TAVOA), is proposed. First, a tent chaotic map is introduced for population initialization. Second, the individual’s historical optimal position is recorded and applied to individual location updating. Third, a time-varying mechanism is designed to balance the exploration ability and exploitation ability. To verify the effectiveness and efficiency of TAVOA, TAVOA is tested on 23 basic benchmark functions, 28 CEC 2013 benchmark functions and 3 common real-world engineering design problems, and compared with AVOA and 5 other state-of-the-art metaheuristic optimization algorithms. According to the results of the Wilcoxon rank-sum test with 5%, among the 23 basic benchmark functions, the performance of TAVOA has significantly better than that of AVOA on 13 functions. Among the 28 CEC 2013 benchmark functions, the performance of TAVOA on 9 functions is significantly better than AVOA, and on 17 functions is similar to AVOA. Besides, compared with the six metaheuristic optimization algorithms, TAVOA also shows good performance in real-world engineering design problems.