Optimization of Engineering Design Problems Using Atomic Orbital Search Algorithm

In this paper, optimum design of engineering problems is considered by means of the Atomic Orbital Search (AOS), a recently proposed metaheuristic optimization algorithm. The mathematical development of the algorithm is based on principles of quantum mechanics focusing on the act of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. For numerical investigation, 20 of well-known constrained design problems in different engineering fields are considered; some of which have been benchmarked by the 2020 Competitions on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2020) for real-world optimization purposes. Statistical results including the best, mean, worst and standard deviation of multiple optimization runs are reported for the AOS algorithm. These results are compared to similar data from previous metaheuristic algorithms found in the literature to establish the efficiency and usefulness of the AOS. It is concluded that the AOS has acceptable behavior in dealing with all the considered constrained optimization problems while the maximum difference of about 40% between the best optimum values of the AOS and other approaches is noted for the robot gripper benchmark problem.