A binary bat algorithm with improved crossover operators and Cauchy mutation for unit commitment problem

Power system operators are faced with the problem of unit commitment belonging to mixed integer programming, which becomes very complicated, as units become large-scale and highly constrained. Because unit commitment problem is a binary problem with commitment and de-commitment, a discrete/binary optimization algorithm with superior performance is required. This paper proposes a novel hybrid binary bat algorithm for unit commitment problem, which consists of two process. To begin with, the proposed binary bat algorithm is applied to determining the commitment schedule of unit commitment problem. Specifically, an improved crossover operator based on exponential-logic-modulo map is proposed to enhance the convergence and maintain the diversity of populations. To prevent the algorithm from falling into a local optimum, a local mutation strategy performs local perturbation. Chaotic map is responsible for updating some parameters to increase the performance of the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, Lambda-iteration method is adopted to solve economic load dispatch in continuous space. Constraint handling is performed using the heuristic constraint produce. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified by benchmark functions and test systems. Additionally, the simulation results are compared with other well-established heuristic and binary approaches.