EAOA: An Enhanced Archimedes Optimization Algorithm for Feature Selection in Classification

Feature selection plays a crucial role in order to mitigate the high dimensional feature space in different classification problems. The computational cost is reduced, and the accuracy of the classification is improved by reducing the dimension of feature space. Hence, in the classification task, finding the optimal subset of features is of utmost importance. Metaheuristic techniques have proved their efficacy in solving many real-world optimization issues. One of the recently introduced physics-inspired optimization methods is Archimedes Optimization Algorithm (AOA). This paper proposes an Enhanced Archimedes Optimization Algorithm (EAOA) by adding a new parameter that depends on the step length of each individual while revising the individual location. The EAOA algorithm is proposed to improve the AOA exploration and exploitation balance and enhance the classification performance for the feature selection issue in real-world data sets. Experiments were performed on twenty-three standard benchmark functions and sixteen real-world data sets to investigate the performance of the proposed EAOA algorithm. The experimental results based on the standard benchmark functions show that the EAOA algorithm provides very competitive results compared to the basic AOA algorithm and five well-known optimization algorithms in terms of improved exploitation, exploration, local optima avoidance, and convergence rate. In addition, the results based on sixteen real-world data sets ascertain that reduced feature subset yields higher classification performance when compared with the other feature selection methods.