Backtracking search optimisation algorithm: A systematic review and performance evaluation

What is it about?

Backtracking search optimisation algorithm (BSA) is a commonly used meta-heuristic optimisation algorithm and was proposed by Civicioglu in 2013. When it was first used, it exhibited its strong potential for solving numerical optimisation problems. Additionally, the experiments conducted in previous studies demonstrated the successful performance of BSA and its non-sensitivity toward the several types of optimisation problems. This success of BSA motivated researchers to work on expanding it, e.g., developing its improved versions or employing it for different applications and problem domains. However, there is a lack of literature review on BSA; therefore, reviewing the aforementioned modifications and applications systematically will aid further development of the algorithm.

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Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This paper provides a systematic review and meta-analysis that emphasise on reviewing the related studies and recent developments on BSA. Hence, the objectives of this work are two-fold: (i) First, two frameworks for depicting the main extensions and the uses of BSA are proposed. The first framework is a general framework to depict the main extensions of BSA, whereas the second is an operational framework to present the expansion procedures of BSA to guide the researchers who are working on improving it. (ii) Second, the experiments conducted in this study fairly compare the analytical performance of BSA with four other competitive algorithms: differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimisation (PSO), artificial bee colony (ABC), and firefly (FF) on 16 different hardness scores of the benchmark functions with different initial control parameters such as problem dimensions and search space.