A novel ameliorated Harris hawk optimizer for solving complex engineering optimization problems

Abstract

This article presents a metaheuristic algorithm namely Ameliorated Harris Hawk Optimizer (AHHO) to solve multiconstrained optimization problems. AHHO mimics the hunting behavior of Harris Hawks and is modified to draw a synergy between exploration and exploitation by conducting neighborhood search of already visited iterations utilizing random exploratory forage and local random forage. The oppositional based learning has been incorporated to generate adequate diversity among solutions. The proposed algorithm is substantiated on a set of 23 standard benchmark functions to test its characteristics in finding optimal solutions. The algorithm is mathematically modeled in the current work to obtain solution for voltage constrained reactive power dispatch (VCRPD) problem for IEEE 57 and 118 bus systems. The proposed method of VCRPD is implemented first with shunt capacitors as var sources and then replacing them with static var compensator (SVC) for improved performance. The optimal placement of SVC is determined by fast voltage stability index method. The proposed AHHO algorithm reduces the transmission losses by 9.42% with shunt capacitors in IEEE 57 bus and 10.344% in IEEE 118 bus system. Similarly, transmission loss with SVC compensated system is reduced by 12.86% in IEEE 57 bus and 14.74% in IEEE 118 bus system. Results reveal the proposed technique has the potent to solve real world optimization problems and is competitive with recent methods reported in state-of- art literature.