Cuckoo Search Algorithm: Basic Concepts, Variants and Applications – A Review

Evolutionary computation-based metaheuristic algorithms have been successfully applied to hard optimization problems. In this very active research area, one of the newest algorithms is a Cuckoo search metaheuristic capable of solving general Ndimensional, linear and nonlinear optimization problems. It is easy to understand and apply, and requires simple mathematical preprocessing. Ever since its foundation in 2009, Cuckoo search algorithm has drawn the attention of many researchers all over the world, resulting in a lot of variants of the basic algorithm with improved performance. This paper reviews the basic concepts of Cuckoo search algorithm, a survey of its major variants applied to solve diverse optimization problems in engineering sciences and the theoretical studies conducted on it so far. Also, it provides an overview of the significant engineering applications that have benefited from its powerful nature.