Operational Framework for Recent Advances in Backtracking Search Optimisation Algorithm: A Systematic Review and Performance Evaluation
This work offers a structured review and performance evaluation to guide researchers in improving BSA for numerical optimisation problems, but it is incremental as it builds on existing studies without introducing new methods.
This paper provides a systematic review and meta-analysis of the Backtracking Search Optimisation Algorithm (BSA), proposing two frameworks to depict its extensions and uses, and experimentally shows that BSA is statistically superior to four other algorithms on 16 benchmark functions with different hardness scores, dimensions, and search spaces.
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. 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. The experimental results indicate that BSA is statistically superior than the aforementioned algorithms in solving different cohorts of numerical optimisation problems such as problems with different levels of hardness score, problem dimensions, and search spaces.