LAUSR

Purpose This study aims to improve the bat algorithm (BA) performance for solving optimization problems in electrical engineering. Design/methodology/approach For this task, two strategies were investigated. The first one is based on including the crossover technique into classical BA, in the same manner as in the genetic algorithm method. Therefore, the newly generated version of BA is called the crossover–bat algorithm (C-BA). In the second strategy, a hybridization of the BA with the Nelder–Mead (NM) simplex method was performed; it gives the NM-BA algorithm. Findings First, the proposed strategies were applied to solve a set of two standard benchmark problems; then, they were applied to solve the TEAM workshop problem 25, where an electromagnetic field was computed by use of the 2D non-linear finite element method. Both optimization algorithms and finite element computation tool were implemented under MATLAB. Originality/value The two proposed optimization strategies, C-BA and NM-BA, have allowed good improvements of classical BA, generally known for its poor solution quality and slow convergence rate.