An improved shuffled frog leaping algorithm with cognitive behavior

Shuffled frog leaping (SFL) is a population based, cooperative search metaphor inspired by natural memetics. Its ability of adapting to dynamic environment makes SFL become one of the most important memetic algorithms. In order to improve the algorithm’s stability and the ability to search the global optimum, a novel ‘cognition component’ is introduced to enhance the effectiveness of the SFL, namely frog not only adjust its position according to the best individual within the memeplex or the global best of population but also according to thinking of the frog itself. To validate the improved SFL (ISFL) method, numerous simulations were conducted to compare SFL and ISFL using six benchmark problems for continuous and discrete optimization. According to the simulation results, adding the cognitive behavior to SFL significantly enhances the performance of SFL in solving the optimization problems, and the improvements are more evident with the scale of the problem increasing.