An improved migrating birds optimization for solving the multidimensional knapsack problem

The multidimensional knapsack problem (MKP) is a famous NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem with strong engineering backgrounds. In this paper, we propose an improved migrating birds optimization (IMBO) to solve the MKP. In IMBO, to guarantee the initial swarm with a certain level of quality and diversity, we generate some meaningful solutions while other individuals are constructed randomly. In addition, considering the characteristics of MBO and MKP, an effective sharing scheme (NSS) is designed to deliver useful information to the following individual. Numerical experiments are performed and comparisons with state-of-the-art algorithms demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed IMBO for solving the MKP.