Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Soft Computing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/asoc

A quick artificial bee colony (qABC) algorithm and its performance on

optimization problems
Dervis Karaboga, Beyza Gorkemli ∗
Erciyes University, Engineering Faculty, Intelligent Systems Research Group, Kayseri, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm inspired by the foraging behaviour of the honey bees is one of
Received 5 March 2013 the most popular swarm intelligence based optimization techniques. Quick artificial bee colony (qABC)
Received in revised form 28 March 2014 is a new version of ABC algorithm which models the behaviour of onlooker bees more accurately and
Accepted 22 June 2014
improves the performance of standard ABC in terms of local search ability. In this study, the qABC method
Available online 28 June 2014
is described and its performance is analysed depending on the neighbourhood radius, on a set of bench-
mark problems. And also some analyses about the effect of the parameter limit and colony size on
Keywords:
qABC optimization are carried out. Moreover, the performance of qABC is compared with the state of
Optimization
Swarm intelligence art algorithms’ performances.
Artificial bee colony © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Quick artificial bee colony

1. Introduction
Optimization is an issue of finding the best solutions via an
objective in the search space of a problem. In order to solve the
real world optimization problems – especially NP hard problems
– evolutionary computation (EC) based optimization methods that
consist of evolutionary algorithms and swarm intelligence based
algorithms are frequently preferred. A swarm intelligence based
algorithm models an intelligent behaviour/behaviours of social
creatures that can be characterised as an intelligent swarm and
this model can be used for searching the optimal solutions of vari-
ous engineering problems. Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is a
swarm intelligence based optimization technique that models the
foraging behaviour of the honey bees in the nature [1]. This algo-
rithm was first introduced to literature by Karaboga in 2005 [2].
Until today, ABC algorithm has been used in many applications. In
[3], a good survey study on ABC algorithm can be found.
Although the standard ABC optimization generally produces
successful results in many application studies, for getting a better
performance from ABC algorithm, some researchers attempted to
implement ABC in parallel [4–8] and some integrated the different
concepts of the other EC based methods with ABC algorithm [9–20].
Zhu and Kwong are influenced by particle swarm optimization
(PSO) and they proposed an improved ABC algorithm named
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 3522076666 32554.
E-mail addresses: karaboga@erciyes.edu.tr (D. Karaboga),
bgorkemli@erciyes.edu.tr (B. Gorkemli).
gbest-guided ABC [9]. They placed the global best solution into the
solution search equation. For multiple sequence alignment prob-
lem, Xu and Lei introduced Metropolis acceptance criteria into the
searching process of ABC to prevent the algorithm from sliding into
local optimum [10]. They called the improved version of ABC as
ABC SA. Tuba et al. improved GABC algorithm that integrates ABC
optimization with self-adaptive guidance [11]. Li et al. used inertia
weight and acceleration coefficients to get a better performance
on the searching process of ABC algorithm [12]. A new scheduling
method based on best-so-far ABC for solving the JSSP was proposed
by Banharnsakun et al. [13]. In this method solution direction is
biased toward the best-so-far solution rather than a neighbour one.
Bi and Wang presented a modification on the scouts’ behaviour
in ABC algorithm [14]. They used a mutation strategy based on
opposition-based learning and called the new method as fast
mutation ABC. Inspired by differential evolution (DE) algorithm,
Gao and Liu presented a new solution search equation for standard
ABC [15]. The new equation aims to improve the exploitation
capability and it is based on that the bee searches only around
the best solution of the previous iteration. Mezura-Montes and
Cetina-Dominguez presented a modified ABC to solve constrained
numerical optimization problems [16]. They modified ABC algo-
rithm with the selection mechanism, the scout bee operator and
the equality and boundary constraints. For constrained optimiza-
tion problems, Bacanin and Tuba introduced some modifications
based on genetic algorithm operators to the ABC algorithm [17]. In
order to improve the exploitation capability of ABC algorithm, Gao
et al. presented an improved ABC [18]. In this improved version,
they used a modified search strategy to generate new food source.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2014.06.035
1568-4946/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
228 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238
They used opposition based learning method and chaotic maps
to produce the initial population for a better global convergence.
For a better exploitation, Gao et al. also presented a modified ABC
algorithm inspiring by DE [19]. With this modification, each bee
searches only around the best solution of the previous cycle to
improve the exploitation. And they also used chaotic systems and
opposition based learning method while producing the initial pop-
ulation and scout bees to improve the global convergence. Liu et al.
introduced an improved ABC algorithm with mutual learning [20].
This approach adjusts the produced candidate food source using
some individuals which are selected by a mutual learning factor.
In order to get more powerful optimization technique, some
researchers combined ABC algorithm with other EC based meth-
ods or traditional algorithms. Kang et al. proposed a hybrid simplex
ABC [21]. In [21], they combined ABC with Nelder–Mead sim-
plex method and in another study, they used this new method for
inverse analysis problems [22]. Marinakis et al. proposed a hybrid
algorithm based on ABC optimization and greedy randomised adap-
tive search procedure in order to cluster n objects into k clusters
[23]. Another different hybrid ABC was described by Xiao and Chen
by using artificial immune network algorithm [24]. They applied
the hybrid algorithm to multi-mode resource constrained multi-
project scheduling problem. Bin and Qian introduced a differential
ABC algorithm for global numerical optimization [25]. Sharma and
Pant used DE operators with standard ABC algorithm [26]. Kang
et al. demonstrated how the standard ABC can be improved by
incorporating a hybridization strategy [27]. They suggested a novel
hybrid optimization technique composed of Hooke Jeeves pattern
search and ABC algorithm. Hsieh et al. proposed a new hybrid algo-
rithm of PSO and ABC optimization [28]. Abraham et al. made a
hybridization of ABC algorithm and DE strategy, and called this
novel approach as hybrid differential ABC algorithm [29].
In this work, instead of presenting a new hybrid ABC algorithm
or integrating an operator of an existing algorithm into ABC, our
aim is to model the behaviour of foragers in ABC more accurately
by introducing a new definition for onlooker bees. By using the new
definition proposed for onlooker bees, ABC achieves a better per-
formance than standard ABC in terms of local search ability. So, we
called our new algorithm as quick ABC (qABC) [30]. In this work, the
qABC algorithm is described in more detailed way and then its per-
formance is tested on a set of test problems larger than that in [30]
and the effects of control parameters neighbourhood radius, limit
and colony size on its performance are investigated. Also the perfor-
mance of qABC is compared with the state of art algorithms. The rest
of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 describes the stan-
dard ABC and the novel strategy (qABC) is presented in Section 3.
The computational study and simulation results are demonstrated
in Section 4 and finally, in Section 5, the conclusion is given.
2. Standard ABC algorithm
The artificial bees are divided in three groups considering the
foraging behaviour of the colony in ABC algorithm. The first group
consists employed bees. These bees have a food source position in
their mind when they leave from the hive. And they perform dances
about their food sources on the dancing area in the hive. Some of
the bees decide the food sources to exploit by watching the dances
of employed bees. This group of bees is called as onlookers. In the
algorithm, onlookers select the food sources in a probability that
related to the qualities of the food sources. The last different bee
group is scouts. Regardless of any information of other bees, a scout
finds a new food source and start to consume it, then she continues
her work as an employed bee. Hence, while the known resources are
consuming, at the same time exploration of the new food sources
is provided. At the beginning of the search (initialization phase),
all of the bees in the hive work as scouts and they all start with
random solutions or food sources. In further cycles, when the food
sources are abandoned, the employed bee related to the abandoned
resource becomes a scout. In the algorithm, a parameter, limit is
used to control the abandonment problem of the food sources. For
each solution, the trial number of improvement is taken, in every
cycle the solution which has the maximum trial number is deter-
mined and its trial number is compared with the parameter limit.
If it achieve the limit value, this solution is leaved and searching
process continues with a randomly produced new solution.
In ABC algorithm, a food source position is defined as a possible
solution and the nectar amount or quality of the food source corre-
sponds to the fitness of the related solution in optimization process.
Since, each employed bee is associated with one and only one food
source, the number of employed bees is equal to the number of food
sources.
The general algorithmic structure of the ABC optimization is
given below:
Initialization phase
REPEAT
Employed bees phase
Onlooker bees phase
Scout bees phase
Memorize the best solution achieved so far
UNTIL (cycle = maximum cycle number or a maximum CPU time)
2.1. Initialization phase
In the initialization phase, food sources are randomly initialised
with Eq. (1) in a given range.
xm,i = li + rand(0, 1) ∗ (ui − li ) (1)
where xm,i is the value of the i. dimension of the m. solution. li repre-
sents the lower and ui represents the upper bound of the parameter
xm,i .
Then, obtained solutions are evaluated and their objective func-
tion values are calculated.
2.2. Employed bees phase
This phase of the algorithm describes the employed bees
behaviour for finding a better food source within the neighbour-
hood of the food source (xm ) in their minds. They leave the hive with
the information of the food source position, but when they arrive
the target point, they are affected from the traces of the other bees
on the flowers and they find a candidate food source. In the ABC
optimization they determine this neighbour food source by using
Eq. (2).
m,i = xm,i + m,i (xm,i − xk,i ) (2)
where xk is a food source selected randomly. i is also a randomly
chosen dimension and m,i is a random number within the range
[−1,1]. After producing the new candidate food source m , its pro-
fitability is calculated. Then, a greedy selection is applied between
m and xm .
The fitness of a solution fit(xm ) can be calculated from its objec-
tive function value f(xm ) by using Eq. (3).

1/(1 + f (xm )) if f (xm ) ≥ 0
fit(xm ) = (3)
1 + abs(f (xm )) if f (xm ) < 0
2.3. Onlooker bees phase
When employed bees return to the hive, they share their food
source information with onlooker bees. An onlooker chooses her
 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238 229

food source to exploit depending on this information, probabilisti- chooses the best one, xNbest to improve. Including x , if there are S
m
m
cally. solutions, the best solution is described by Eq. (7) in Nm .
In ABC algorithm, using the fitness values of the solutions, the  best
  
1 2
   S
 
probability value pm can be calculated by Eq. (4). fit xNm
= max fit xN m
, fit xN m
, . . ., fit xN m
(7)

In order to determine a neighbour of xm , a more general and

fit(xm )
pm = SN
m=1
fit(xm )
After a food source is selected, as in the employed bees phase
a neighbour source m is determined by using Eq. (2), and its fit-
ness value is computed. Then, a greedy selection is applied between
m and xm . Therefore, recruiting more onlookers to richer sources,
positive feedback behaviour appears.
2.4. Scout bees phase
At the end of every cycle, trial counters of all solutions are
controlled. And abandonment of the solution that has maximum
counter value is determined by looking limit parameter. If an aban-
donment is detected, the related employed bee is converted to a
scout and takes a new randomly produced solution using Eq. (1).
In this phase, to balance the positive feedback, a negative feedback
behaviour arises.
3. The novel definition for the searching behaviour of
onlookers (qABC algorithm)
In real honey bee colonies, an employed bee exploits the food
source that she visited before, but an onlooker chooses a food source
region depending on the dances of the employed bees. After reach-
ing that region where she visits for the first time, the onlooker bee
examines the food sources in the area and chooses the fittest one to
exploit. So, it can be said that onlookers choose their food sources
in a different way from employed bees. However, in standard ABC
algorithm, this difference is not considered and artificial employed
bees and onlookers determine a new candidate solution by using
the same formula (Eq. (2)). Onlookers behaviour should be mod-
elled by a different formula from Eq. (2). So, in qABC algorithm, a
new definition is introduced for the behaviour of onlookers. This
novel definition is given as follows:
 
best
Nm ,i
best
= xN
m ,i
best
+ m,i xN
m ,i
− xk,i
In this formula, xN best represents the best solution among the
m
neighbours of xm and itself (Nm ). A similarity measure in terms of
structure of solutions can be used to determine a neighbourhood
for xm . At this point, in order to define an appropriate neighbour-
hood, different approaches could be used. And also, for different
representations of the solutions, different similarity measures can
be defined. Hence, using this novel formula, Eq. (5), combinatorial
or binary problems could be optimised by using qABC algorithm,
too. As an instance, the neighbourhood of a solution (xm ) could be
defined considering the mean Euclidean distance between xm and
the rest of solutions for the numerical optimization problems. Rep-
resenting the Euclidean distance between xm and xj as d(m, j), the
mean Euclidean distance for xm , mdm , is calculated by Eq. (6).
SN
d(m, j)
j=1
mdm =
SN − 1
If a solution of which Euclidean distance from xm is less than the
mean Euclidean distance, mdm , it could be accepted as a neighbour
of xm . It means that, an onlooker bee watches the dances of the
employed bees in the hive and being effected by them, she selects
the region which is centred by the food source xm . When she arrives
the region of xm , she examines all of the food sources in Nm and
(4) flexible definition can be used is given below:
if d(m, j) ≤ r × mdm then xj is a neighbor of xm ,
(8)
else not
With this expression, a new parameter r which refers to the
“neighbourhood radius” is added into the parameters of standard
ABC algorithm. This parameter must be used as r ≥ 0. In Eq. (8),
when r = 0, Eq. (5) works same as Eq. (2) and in this situation, qABC
turns to be the standard ABC, since xN best becomes x . While the
m
m
value of r increases, the neighbourhood of xm enlarges or its neigh-
bourhood shrinks as the value of r decreases.
Detailed steps of qABC algorithm are given below:
Initializationphase:
Initialize the control parameters: colony size CS, maximum
number of cycles MaxNum, limit l.
Initialize the positions of the food sources (initial solutions)
using Eq. (1), xm . m = 1, 2, . . ., SN.
Evaluate the solutions.
Memorize the best solution.
c=0
repeat
Employedbeesphase: for each employed bee;
Generate a new candidate solution m in the neighborhood of
xm (Eq. (2)) and evaluate it.
Apply a greedy selection between xm and m .
Compute the fitness of the solutions by using Eq. (3) and calcu-
late the probability values pm for the solutions xm with Eq. (4).
Onlookerbeesphase: for each onlooker bee;
Select a solution xm depending on pm values
best among the neighbours of the x
Find the best solution xN m
m
and itself. These neighbours are determined by expression (8)
Generate a new candidate solution best Nm
from xN best (Eq. (5))
m
and evaluate it.
best best
Apply a greedy selection between xNm and Nm .
Memorize the best solution found so far.
(5)
Scoutbeephase: using the limit parameter value l, determine the
abandoned solution. If exists, replace it with a new solution for the
scout by using Eq. (1).
c=c+1
until (c = MaxNum)
4. Computational study and discussion
We conducted the experiments with different values of r (r = 0,
r = 0.25, r = 0.5, r = 1, r = 1.5, r = 2, r = 2.5, r = 3, r =∞) and the effect
of this parameter was analysed in means of the convergence
performance and the quality of the solutions obtained by the
algorithm. Results of qABC were compared with the state of art
algorithms including genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm opti-
mization (PSO), differential evolution (DE) algorithm and standard
ABC. The results of GA, PSO and DE are taken from [31]. For a
(6) fair comparison the same parameter settings and the evaluation
number are used as in [31]. So, the colony size is 50 and maxi-
mum evaluation number is 500,000. For the scout process, the limit
parameter l is calculated with Eq. (9) [31]:
CS ∗ D
l= (9)
2
where CS is the colony size and D is the dimension of the problem.
230 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238

Table 1
Test problems.

Test function C D Interval Min Formulation

D 2
Sphere US 30 [−100, 100] Fmin = 0 f (x) = xi
i=1
D−1 2 2
Rosenbrock UN 30 [−30, 30] Fmin = 0 f (x) = 100(xi+1 − xi 2 ) + (xi − 1)
i=1
D
f (x) = (xi 2 − 10 cos(2xi ) + 10)
D 2 D  
Rastrigin MS 30 [−5.12, 5.12] Fmin = 0
i=1
xi
Griewank MN 30 [−600, 600] Fmin = 0 f (x) = 1
4000
( xi ) − cos √ +1
i=1 i=1 i
D
sin2 ( xi 2 )−0.5
i=1
Schaffer MN 2 [−100, 100] Fmin = 0 f (x) = 0.5 + D 2 2

(1+0.001( xi ))
i=1
2 D 2
Dixon-Price UN 30 [−10, 10] Fmin = 0 f (x) = (x1 − 1) + i(2xi − xi−1 )
2
i=2

1
D  1 D 
Ackley MN 30 [−32, 32] Fmin = 0 f (x) = 20 + e − 20 exp −0.2 D
xi 2 − exp D
cos(2xi )
i=1 i=1
D
Schwefel MS 30 [−500, 500] Fmin = −12, 569.5 f (x) = − xi sin( |xi |)
i=1
1
SixHumpCamelBack MN 2 [−5, 5] Fmin = −1.03163 f (x) = 4x1 2 − 2.1x1 4 + x 6+ x1 x2 − 4x2 2 + 4x2 4
 5.1
3 1
5
2  1

Branin MS 2 [−5, 10] × [0, 15] Fmin = 0.398 f (x) = x2 − x1 2 + x
 1
−6 + 10 1 − 8
cos x1 + 10
42

Table 2
Performance comparison of qABC algorithms with different r values on Rosenbrock function.

Algorithm Mean SD Best Worst

qABC(r = 0) 0.1766957 0.2661797 0.0005833 1.0439761

qABC(r = 0.25) 0.1464777 0.2563342 0.0004032 1.0708763
qABC(r = 0.5) 0.1066600 0.2173580 0.0001952 1.1410752
qABC(r = 1) 0.1329198 0.1799131 0.0001488 0.8556796
qABC(r = 1.5) 0.0886332 0.1181011 0.0010554 0.5050920
qABC(r = 2) 0.1391871 0.2204129 0.0004161 0.9241398
qABC(r = 2.5) 0.0976565 0.1918210 3.4632951E−05 0.9517281
qABC(r = 3) 0.1319018 0.1821670 0.0016222 0.6486930
qABC(r =∞) 0.1194790 0.2266048 9.2660744E−05 0.9657111

The best values are written in bold.

Table 3
Performance comparison of qABC algorithms with different r values on Griewank function.

Algorithm Mean SD Best Worst

qABC(r = 0) 0 0 0 0
qABC(r = 0.25) 0 0 0 0
qABC(r = 0.5) 0 0 0 1.3322676E−15
qABC(r = 1) 0 0 0 0
qABC(r = 1.5) 0 0 0 2.1094237E−15
qABC(r = 2) 0 0 0 0
qABC(r = 2.5) 1.1139238E−15 3.6522213E−15 0 1.9317881E−14
qABC(r = 3) 5.8878828E−15 3.1233220E−14 0 1.7408297E−13
qABC(r =∞) 0 0 0 0

Wilcoxon statistical test was also carried out for standard ABC
and qABC algorithms. 10 well-known benchmark problems with
different characters were considered in order to test the perfor-
mance of qABC. These test problems, characteristic of the functions
(C), dimensions of the problems (D), bounds of the search spaces
and the global optimum values for these problems are presented
in Table 1. One of these benchmarks is unimodal-seperable (US),
two of them are unimodal-nonseperable (UN), three of them are
multimodel-seperable (MS) and four of them are multimodel-
nonseperable (MN).
For each test case, 30 independent runs were carried out
with random seeds. The values below the E−15 are accepted as
0. Tables 2–9 show the mean values (mean) and the standard
deviation values (SD) calculated for the test problems over 30 runs.

Table 4
Performance comparison of qABC algorithms with different r values on Schaffer function.

Algorithm Mean SD Best Worst

qABC(r = 0) 1.0367306E−10 4.8286140E−10 0 2.6913450E−09

qABC(r = 0.25) 3.3495204E−07 7.2781864E−07 5.0494242E−10 3.5700525E−06
qABC(r = 0.5) 2.3833678E−06 2.9895980E−06 1.7145336E−08 1.1465332E−05
qABC(r = 1) 8.6610854E−06 7.8289333E−06 3.4646886E−08 3.1484602E−05
qABC(r = 1.5) 1.1965610E−05 1.8307200E−05 1.6412526E−07 8.8334161E−05
qABC(r = 2) 1.2654317E−05 1.5067672E−05 1.1556006E−08 5.1342794E−05
qABC(r = 2.5) 1.0554241E−05 1.2934532E−05 1.6327515E−08 6.4734260E−05
qABC(r = 3) 5.4603177E−06 6.9975635E−06 1.0385392E−08 3.4239721E−05
qABC(r =∞) 7.4164064E−06 8.4686549E−06 8.9004138E−08 3.4904411E−05
 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238 231

Table 5
Performance comparison of qABC algorithms with different r values on Dixon-Price function.

Algorithm Mean SD Best Worst

qABC(r = 0) 4.0922605E−15 0 2.2791451E−15 5.6569644E−15

qABC(r = 0.25) 7.9822146E−14 2.0983737E−13 3.6601337E−15 1.1324986E−12
qABC(r = 0.5) 2.0912869E−13 6.1424217E−13 2.3120888E−15 3.1851131E−12
qABC(r = 1) 1.1543113E−12 3.3608330E−12 7.6586127E−15 1.7660988E−11
qABC(r = 1.5) 4.8758038E−10 1.7748020E−09 7.1680057E−15 8.4398125E−09
qABC(r = 2) 1.7512132E−11 3.7392269E−11 4.8438112E−14 1.6990125E−10
qABC(r = 2.5) 4.7203508E−11 1.5378112E−10 3.1991671E−14 8.0074050E−10
qABC(r = 3) 4.5301684E−12 1.3752168E−11 7.5714139E−15 7.6488374E−11
qABC(r =∞) 1.1022304E−09 5.7130716E−09 3.9034247E−14 3.1861559E−08

Table 6
Performance comparison of qABC algorithms with different r values on Ackley function.

Algorithm Mean SD Best Worst

qABC(r = 0) 3.0819791E−14 2.3206228E−15 2.7977620E−14 3.8635761E−14

qABC(r = 0.25) 3.3306691E−14 4.5635433E−15 2.0872193E−14 3.8635761E−14
qABC(r = 0.5) 3.2359300E−14 3.5150128E−15 2.7977620E−14 3.8635761E−14
qABC(r = 1) 3.5556743E−14 3.6385215E−15 2.7977620E−14 3.8635761E−14
qABC(r = 1.5) 3.5319895E−14 3.9914263E−15 2.7977620E−14 4.2188475E−14
qABC(r = 2) 3.6148862E−14 5.1196893E−15 2.0872193E−14 4.2188475E−14
qABC(r = 2.5) 3.4964624E−14 3.7242352E−15 2.7977620E−14 4.2188475E−14
qABC(r = 3) 3.5201471E−14 4.0489854E−15 2.7977620E−14 4.2188475E−14
qABC(r =∞) 3.4964624E−14 4.3495560E−15 2.7977620E−14 4.2188475E−14

Table 7
Performance comparison of qABC algorithms with different r values on Schwefel function.

Algorithm Mean SD Best Worst

qABC(r = 0) −12,569.4866182 2.0739670E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182

qABC(r = 0.25) −12,569.4866182 1.8189894E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182
qABC(r = 0.5) −12,569.4866182 1.9926030E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182
qABC(r = 1) −12,569.4866182 2.5073039E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182
qABC(r = 1.5) −12,569.4866182 2.6359661E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182
qABC(r = 2) −12,569.4866182 2.4404304E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182
qABC(r = 2.5) −12,569.4866182 2.2277979E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182
qABC(r = 3) −12,569.4866182 2.4404304E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182
qABC(r =∞) −12,569.4866182 2.1522573E−12 −12,569.4866182 −12,569.4866182

Table 8
Performance comparison of qABC algorithms with different r values on SixHumpCamelBack function.

Algorithm Mean SD Best Worst

qABC(r = 0) −1.0316284 0 −1.0316284 −1.0316284

qABC(r = 0.25) −1.0316284 0 −1.0316284 −1.0316284
qABC(r = 0.5) −1.0316284 0 −1.0316284 −1.0316284
qABC(r = 1) −1.0316284 0 −1.0316284 −1.0316284
qABC(r = 1.5) −1.0316284 5.9542190E−15 −1.0316284 −1.0316284
qABC(r = 2) −1.0316284 3.9448606E−15 −1.0316284 −1.0316284
qABC(r = 2.5) −1.0316284 2.0726806E−15 −1.0316284 −1.0316284
qABC(r = 3) −1.0316284 1.1523523E−15 −1.0316284 −1.0316284
qABC(r =∞) −1.0316284 0 −1.0316284 −1.0316284

Table 9
Performance comparison of qABC algorithms with different r values on Branin function.

Algorithm Mean SD Best Worst

qABC(r = 0) 0.3978874 0 0.3978874 0.3978874

qABC(r = 0.25) 0.3978874 5.3906531E−12 0.3978874 0.3978874
qABC(r = 0.5) 0.3978874 4.4721075E−11 0.3978874 0.3978874
qABC(r = 1) 0.3978874 9.7048440E−10 0.3978874 0.3978874
qABC(r = 1.5) 0.3978874 1.6710417E−09 0.3978874 0.3978874
qABC(r = 2) 0.3978874 5.7917265E−09 0.3978874 0.3978874
qABC(r = 2.5) 0.3978874 3.0718302E−09 0.3978874 0.3978874
qABC(r = 3) 0.3978874 2.4476542E−09 0.3978874 0.3978874
qABC(r =∞) 0.3978874 2.9740517E−09 0.3978874 0.3978874
232 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238

Table 11

7.8289333E−06
2.5073039E−12
3.3608330E−12

9.7048440E−10
Wilcoxon signed rank test results.

0.1799131
Function Mean difference p-Value

Sphere 0 –
Rosenbrock 0.0437759 0.711

SD

0
0
0

0
Rastrigin 0 –
Griewank 0 –

1.1543113E−12
8.6610854E−06
Schaffer −8.66098E−06 0.000
Dixon-Price −1.15022E−12 0.000

0.1329198

−12,569.4866182

0.3978874
−1.0316284
Ackley 0 –
Schwefel 0 –
SixHumpCamelBack 0 –
0

0
0
0
Branin −5.90257E−10 0.000
Mean
qABC

2.0739670E−12
4.8286140E−10

Moreover, objective function values of the best and the worst of 30

runs are given in these tables too. From the tables, it is very easy
0.2661797

to see similar mean and SD values presenting the performances of

qABC with different values of the parameter r.
SD

The qABC algorithm hits the optimum result for each of 30

0

0
0
0

0
0
0

independent runs on Sphere and Rastrigin problems for all r val-

1.0367306E−10

ues. Tables 7 and 8 present the effect of the parameter r on

−12,569.4866182
0.1766957

0.3978874
−1.0316284

Schwefel and SixHumpCamelBack functions, respectively. For all

r values, qABC can find optimum results in terms of mean, best and
worst of 30 runs for these test functions. The same performance
0

0
0
0

comparisons on Rosenbrock function is demonstrated in Table 2.

Mean

qABC(r = 1.5) produces more successful mean, SD and worst results

ABC

and qABC(r = 2.5) is the most successful one in terms of the best of 30
runs among the qABC algorithms with different r values. In Table 9,
2.538172

521.849292
5.036187

0.002958

the effect of the parameter r on Branin function is presented. For

all r values, qABC finds the same objective function value which is
0

0
0

E9
0
0

very close to the optimum result in all columns of the table except
SD

SD column on Branin function. Only qABC(r = 0) finds the 0 value

as standard deviation for this test function. For most of the r val-
0.6666667

0.3978874
0.0014792
11.716728
18.203938

−1.031628

ues, qABC finds optimum results in Table 3 for Griewank function.

Only qABC(r = 2.5 and r = 3) give different results from the optimum
0

0
0
−10,266

values on mean and SD columns. However, these results are very

Mean

close to optimum ones. And at least once in 30 runs, qABC finds the
DE

optimum solution of Griewank function. Tables 4 and 5 demon-

strate the performance results of qABC on Schaffer and Dixon-Price
11.728676

0.493867

457.957783
24.170196

0.020808

functions, respectively. These results show that, qABC is effected

by the value of the parameter r on these test functions. qABC(r = 0)
0

E8
0
0

presents more successful results in all fields of the table for both
SD

functions. And also, only qABC(r = 0) finds the optimum result for
43.9771369

0.1646224

0.6666667

0.3978874
0.0173912

−1.0316285

Schaffer function. Table 6 shows the results of the qABC on Ackley

15.088617

−6909.1359

function. For all r values, qABC presents similar results at the end
of the optimization process for Ackley function. qABC(r = 0) gener-
0

0
Mean

ates the best results in terms of mean and SD of 30 runs. When r is

PSO

smaller than 1.5, qABC gives better values in the column “worst” of
Comparison of the qABC algorithm with state of art algorithms.

the table on Ackley function.

74.214474

1.161455
0.178141
4.564860

93.254240
0.004763
3.85E+04

2.66E+02

Considering the objective function values and the evaluation

numbers, the convergence graphics of qABC with different r val-
ues are shown in Figs. 1–10 for Sphere, Rosenbrock, Rastrigin,
SD

0
0

Griewank, Schaffer, Dixon-Price, Ackley, Schwefel, SixHumpCamel-

Back and Branin, respectively. When these figures are examined,
0.397887
0.004239
1.11E+03
1.96E+05

1.22E+03
−1.03163
52.92259
10.63346
14.67178

the first six of them present a remarkable difference between qABCs

having r ≥ 1 and the other ones. The speed of the convergence looks
−11,593.4

similar for the r ≥ 1 valued qABC algorithms for these test problems
Mean

except Schwefel. Although qABC(r = 1) has a quicker convergence

GA

performance than qABC(r = 0) and qABC(r = 0.5), in early evalua-

tions its convergence performance is slower than in the case of
SixHumpCamelBack

r > 1 for Schwefel function. When the graphics of the first six func-
tions are examined for the values of r smaller than 1, qABC(r = 0.5)
Dixon-Price
Rosenbrock

performs softly better convergence than qABC(r = 0) for Griewank,

Griewank

Schwefel
Rastrigin
Function

Schaffer

Dixon-Price and Ackley functions. For Schaffer function, the con-

Sphere
Table 10

Ackley

Branin

vergence speed of qABC(r = 0.5) is considerably better than the

performance of qABC(r = 0) while there is no significant difference
 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238 233

4
x 10
12
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
qABC(r=1)
10 qABC(r=2)
qABC(r=3)

Objective Function Value

qABC(r=infinite)

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
Evaluations

Fig. 1. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Sphere function.

8
x 10
5
qABC(r=0)
4.5 qABC(r=0.5)
qABC(r=1)
qABC(r=2)
4
Objective Function Value

qABC(r=3)
qABC(r=infinite)
3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Evaluations

Fig. 2. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Rosenbrock function.

between these two r values on Rosenbrock and Rastrigin functions. reminded that, when r = 0, Eq. (5) becomes equal to Eq. (2) and qABC
Since qABC converges to the optimal values in very early evalua- works like the standard ABC. Generally, when r ≥ 1, the standard
tions on Branin and SixHumpCamelBack functions for all r values, ABC requires at least two times more function evaluations than
comparing the speed of the convergence is meaningless through qABC to reach the same mean value. When the convergence graph-
the optimization process. Actually, it can be said that qABC has a ics and the results in the tables are evaluated, it can be generalised
very successful convergence performance on these two 2 dimen- that a value around 1 for r is an appropriate value for qABC algo-
sional test problems for all considered r values. rithm. So, in the comparison of qABC with the state of algorithms
These graphics show that the parameter r is one of the main (GA, PSO, DE, ABC), the results of qABC having the parameter r = 1
factors for the convergence speed of qABC algorithm. It should be was used. This comparison results are given in Table 10. In the

600
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
qABC(r=1)
500 qABC(r=2)
qABC(r=3)
Objective Function Value

qABC(r=infinite)

400

300

200

100

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 4
Evaluations x 10

Fig. 3. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Rastrigin function.

234 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238

1000
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
900 qABC(r=1)
qABC(r=2)
800 qABC(r=3)

Objective Function Value

qABC(r=infinite)
700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Evaluations

Fig. 4. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Griewank function.

0.7
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
0.6 qABC(r=1)
qABC(r=2)
Objective Function Value

qABC(r=3)
qABC(r=infinite)
0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Evaluations

Fig. 5. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Schaffer function.

table, the mean of 30 independent runs and the standard devia- smaller objective function values than other compared algorithms,
tions are presented for considered problems. For a fair comparison and the best mean and SD values belong to the qABC algorithm.
the table values below E−12 are accepted as 0 as in [31]. qABC and ABC algorithms find optimum results for Rastrigin and
When Table 10 is examined, it can be seen that GA has the Griewank functions while other algorithms do not. Performance
worst performance among the considered algorithms for all prob- of the PSO and DE on Griewank is better than that on Rastrigin
lems except Schwefel, SixHumpCamelBack and Branin. It has the function. However GA’s performance does not show a remarkable
best performance on SixHumpCamelBack and Branin functions. difference on these test functions. PSO and DE algorithms achieve
However, there is not a really remarkable difference between the the optimum results in given number of function evaluations,
performance of the algorithms, we can say that all algorithms while ABC, qABC and GA orderly converge to the optimum value
perform well on SixHumpCamelBack and Branin test functions. On with some errors on Schaffer function. qABC and ABC algorithms
Rosenbrock function, the standard ABC and qABC algorithms find present excellent performance, however other algorithms do not

6
x 10
4
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
3.5 qABC(r=1)
qABC(r=2)
qABC(r=3)
Objective Function Value

3 qABC(r=infinite)

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Evaluations

Fig. 6. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Dixon-Price function.

 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238 235

25
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
qABC(r=1)
qABC(r=2)
20 qABC(r=3)

Objective Function Value

qABC(r=infinite)

15

10

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
4
Evaluations x 10

Fig. 7. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Ackley function.

2000
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
0 qABC(r=1)
qABC(r=2)
qABC(r=3)
Objective Function Value

qABC(r=infinite)
−2000

−4000

−6000

−8000

−10000

−12000

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 4
x 10
Evaluations

Fig. 8. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Schwefel function.

provide so good results on Schwefel and Dixon-Price functions. mean values for six of ten problems among the compared opti-
Both ABC algorithms give the same mean value which is very close mization algorithms. So, in order to compare the performance of
to optimum for Schwefel function and ABC hits the optimum mean the qABC and ABC, the Wilcoxon signed rank test was used in this
value of Dixon-Price while qABC does not. For Ackley problem, all paper. Wilcoxon test is a nonparametric statistical test that can be
of the algorithms find the optimum results except GA and PSO. used for the analyzing the behaviour of evolutionary algorithms
PSO’s result is closer to 0 than the result of the GA. [33]. The test results are shown in Table 11. The first column of
The table clearly shows that ABC and qABC algorithms clearly the table presents the test functions, and the second column gives
outperform GA, PSO and DE in these conditions on the consid- the mean difference between the results of ABC and qABC. The
ered test problems. However, it is not very clear that there is a last column gives the p value that is an important determiner of
significant difference between the performances of the two ABC the test. Since the mean difference column value is 0 for six text
algorithms which produce very similar results and present the best functions, there are four test problems that the significance of the

1400
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
1200 qABC(r=1)
qABC(r=2)
Objective Function Value

qABC(r=3)
1000 qABC(r=infinite)

800

600

400

200

−200
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Evaluations

Fig. 9. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on SixHumpCamelBack function.

236 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238

70
qABC(r=0)
qABC(r=0.5)
qABC(r=1)
60 qABC(r=2)

Objective Function Value

qABC(r=3)
qABC(r=infinite)
50

40

30

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Evaluations

Fig. 10. qABC algorithms’ convergence performance on Branin function.

difference between the performances of the algorithms can be dis-
cussed. Among the four test problem, the p value is different from
0 for only Rosenbrock. So, only for Rosenbrock problem there is
not enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis (0.711 > 0.05).
These tests show that in these conditions, the performance of ABC
algorithm is significantly better than qABC for other three test
functions (Schaffer, Dixon-Price and Branin). It should be empha-
sised that these tests are based on the final results obtained by the
algorithms.
Generally, we could interpret the simulation and test results
as, when Eq. (5) is used for onlookers to produce new solutions
with r ≥ 1, the local convergence performance of ABC is signifi-
cantly improved especially in the early cycles of the optimization
process. So, a good tuning of the parameter r promises a superior
convergence performance for qABC algorithm.
4.1. Time complexity of ABC algorithms
In this section, a time complexity analysing process is carried
out for ABC and qABC algorithms on Rosenbrock function. In order
to present the time complexity’s relationship with the dimension
of the problem, the complexities are calculated for the dimen-
sions: 10, 30 and 50 as described in [32]. The results are shown
in Table 12 for ABC and qABC algorithms. These analyses were per-
formed on Windows 7 Professional (SP1) on a Intel(R) Core(TM) i7
M640 2.80 GHz processor with 8 GB RAM and the algorithms were
coded by using C Sharp programming language and.net framework
3.5 was used.
The code execution time of this system was obtained and
demonstrated in the table as T0 . Also, the computing time for Rosen-
brock function for 200,000 function evaluations is presented as T1 in
the table. Each of the algorithms was run 5 times for 200,000 func-
tion evaluations and the average computing time of the algorithms
are presented as T̂2 . The algorithm complexities were calculated by
(T̂2 − T1 )/T0 . The time complexity of the qABC is higher than ABC
algorithm since there is an additional part in the phase of onlooker
bees. However, it should be noticed that the increment rate on the
complete computing time of qABC is lower than the increment
rate of the dimension, like ABC algorithm. So, it can be indicated
that there is not a strict dependence between the dimension of the
problem and the complexities of qABC and ABC.
4.2. Experiments on “colony size”
For the experiments in this section, four test functions from
Table 1 were selected. Each function has different character. These
benchmarks are: Sphere, Rosenbrock, Rastrigin and Griewank func-
tions. In the experiments, r was set as 1. The same parameter setting
was used with the previous experiments (maximum evaluation
number = 500,000).The limit value was calculated by using Eq. (9)
as indicated before. The qABC algorithm was tested on the men-
tioned functions for the several different colony size (CS) values:
4, 6, 12, 24, 50, 100, 200 and the results of the experiments are
presented in Table 13.
The table shows that qABC algorithm gives the optimal results in
all fields without being influenced by changing the CS for the values
CS > 6 and CS > 12 on Sphere and Rastrigin functions, respectively.
The optimal values are also found by the algorithm on Griewank
function with CS = 50 and CS = 200. Although the algorithm finds
the results very close to the optimum for CS = 100, when CS < 50,
there is not efficient convergence to the optimum for Griewank
test function. Considering the standard deviations, the mean values
are very similar for Rosenbrock problem for the intervals of the CS
values 24–200 and 6–12. However, when CS = 4, the results of qABC
significantly get worse on Rosenbrock function.
4.3. Experiments on “limit”
The same test functions in the previous section were used to
test the qABC algorithm for different limit values (10, 50, 187,
375, 750, 1500) to observe the relation between the parameter
limit and the performance of the algorithm for this algorithm. The

Table 12
Time complexities of the ABC and qABC algorithms on Rosenbrock function.

D T0 T1 T̂2 of ABC T̂2 of qABC Complexity of Complexity of

ABC((T̂2 − T1 )/T0 ) qABC((T̂2 − T1 )/T0 )

10 0.088005 0.4280245 0.58063322 2.85596336 1.73409147207545 27.5886467814329

30 0.088005 1.3590778 1.66389516 8.28667398 3.46363683881598 78.7182112379978
50 0.088005 2.3511345 2.72615592 13.7839884 4.26136492244759 129.911412987898
Table 13
Effect of the colony size (CS) on the performance of qABC algorithm.

CS Sphere Rosenbrock Rastrigin Griewank

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

4 0.0295194 0.0564562 80.0869673 46.9672644 5.9836256 1.8967871 0.1236460 0.0935611

6 2.6999635E−15 2.3764678E−15 0.2882164 0.3470707 0.25516277 0.4203245 2.4260047E−05 7.2695534E−05
12 0 0 0.3033491 0.5071798 3.7133555E−12 6.8609101E−12 4.1002980E−10 1.6459408E−09
24 0 0 0.1086825 0.1165915 0 0 1.5733340E−13 7.7332947E−13
50 0 0 0.1329198 0.1799131 0 0 0 0

D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238

100 0 0 0.0618102 0.1052786 0 0 2.1353290E−15 1.1087109E−14
200 0 0 0.1350616 0.1581752 0 0 0 0

Table 14
Effect of the limit on the performance of qABC algorithm.

Limit Sphere Rosenbrock Rastrigin Griewank

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

10 7.4129058 2.9555841 654.3308640 181.7699715 26.6525432 3.6289378 1.0672783 0.0355146

50 6.2867716E−09 4.7047270E−09 0.6935193 0.4453130 1.0218641E−05 1.5189265E−05 3.6988779E−06 5.1940736E−06
187 1.1402053E−15 0 0.1007734 0.1877014 6.8093679E−15 6.9419476E−15 2.5103216E−12 1.1533350E−11
375 0 0 0.1084152 0.1497979 0 0 1.8577732E−14 8.8020357E−14
750 0 0 0.1329198 0.1799131 0 0 0 0
1500 0 0 0.1919979 0.3661197 0 0 0 0

237
238 D. Karaboga, B. Gorkemli / Applied Soft Computing 23 (2014) 227–238
same parameter setting used in the previous experiments (colony
size = 50 and the maximum evaluation number = 500,000) were
used. In terms of the mean and standard deviation of 30 inde-
pendent runs, the simulation results are given in Table 14. On
Griewank, Sphere and Rastrigin functions, the results get better
as the limit values increase. However, the algorithm achieves the
optimum results when the limit value is l ≥ 750 for the Griewank
function and l ≥ 375 for the Sphere and Rastrigin functions. When
the standard deviation is considered, the difference between the
mean objective function values produced for different limit values
looks very small on Rosenbrock function except the smallest limit
value, 10.
The results of these experiments showed that, 750 which is
equal to the value calculated by Eq. (9) is a suitable value as the
limit parameter.
5. Conclusion
In this paper a new definition for the behaviour of the onlooker
bees of ABC algorithm was presented and a novel version of
ABC called quick ABC (qABC) was described. Experimental studies
showed that the new definition significantly improves the conver-
gence performance of the standard ABC when the neighbourhood
radius r is set appropriately.
The performance of the qABC algorithm was compared with the
standard ABC and the state of art algorithms. The results showed
that, qABC algorithm presents promising results for considered
problems. In order to analyse the effect of the parameters limit and
colony size on the performance of the qABC algorithm, some exper-
iments were also conducted. Moreover, time complexity analyses
were carried out for ABC and qABC algorithms.
In the future, the adaptation of the parameter r can be studied
to improve the performance of qABC. It is also noted that qABC
algorithm can be used for all type optimization problems, such as
binary, combinatorial, integer optimization problems.
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