Drilling Path Optimization by Optimal Foraging Algorithm

Drilling path optimization (DPO) is a crucial issue in current manufacturing systems. In this paper, an optimization algorithm named the optimal foraging algorithm (OFA) is presented based on optimal foraging theory to solve the sequencing problem when many holes must be drilled. The objective of this study is to identify the optimal sequence of drilling operations using OFA to minimize the total processing cost. Since the drilling sequence optimization problem is considered a discrete optimization problem, five operators that can address the integer-encoding vector are built for OFA; thus, a discrete version of OFA is presented. The performance of OFA is evaluated against four other baseline algorithms in solving five real-world problems. The results, including the optimal solutions, the Kruskal-Wallis test, CPU time and the evolution curves, demonstrate that OFA improves the solution by minimizing nonproductive time. OFA is verified as a feasible method for solving DPO problems.