Modified multi-strategy artificial bee colony algorithm for optimising node coverage problem

To enhance exploitation for artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm, we propose a modified multi-strategy ABC variant in which a superior information learning strategy is employed. In this strategy, the individuals can learn superior information from an exemplar which has better fitness value, and the exemplar is no longer acted by the global best individual or the elite group. In experiments, 22 well-known test functions are used and six well-established ABC variants are involved in the comparison. The results show that our approach performs better on most of test functions. Furthermore, our approach is applied to solve the node coverage optimisation problem in wireless sensor network. To this end, an improved Boolean sensing model is used to model the objective function, and simulation results indicate that our approach can provide promising performance. © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.