The dragonfly algorithm (DA) is a new intelligent algorithm based on the theory of dragonfly foraging and evading predators. DA exhibits excellent performance in solving multimodal continuous functions and engineering problems. To make this algorithm work in the binary space, this paper introduces an angle modulation mechanism on DA (called AMDA) to generate bit strings, that is, to give alternative solutions to binary problems, and uses DA to optimize the coefficients of the trigonometric function. Further, to improve the algorithm stability and convergence speed, an improved AMDA, called IAMDA, is proposed by adding one more coefficient to adjust the vertical displacement of the cosine part of the original generating function. To test the performance of IAMDA and AMDA, 12 zero-one knapsack problems are considered along with 13 classic benchmark functions. Experimental results prove that IAMDA has a superior convergence speed and solution quality as compared to other algorithms.
Keywords: 0-1 knapsack problem; angle modulation mechanism; binary optimization; dragonfly algorithm; trigonometric generating function.