The raven roosting optimisation algorithm

A significant stream of literature which draws inspiration from the foraging activities of various organisms to design optimisation algorithms has emerged over the past decade. The success of these algorithms across a wide variety of application domains has spurred interest in the examination of the foraging behaviours of other organisms to develop novel and powerful, optimisation algorithms. A variety of animals, including some species of birds and bats, engage in social roosting whereby large numbers of conspecifics gather together to roost, either overnight or for longer periods. It has been claimed that these roosts can serve as information centres to spread knowledge concerning the location of food resources in the environment. In this paper we look at the social roosting and foraging behaviour of one species of bird, the common raven, and take inspiration from this to design a novel optimisation algorithm which we call the raven roosting optimisation algorithm. The utility of the algorithm is assessed on a series of benchmark problems and the results are found to be competitive. We also provide a novel taxonomy which classifies foraging-inspired optimisation algorithms based on the underlying social communication mechanism embedded in the algorithms.