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The large-scale real value problem in continuous and discrete optimization problems is a challenging issue for researchers and practitioners in the manufacturing domain. An improved artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) combined with multi-agent reinforcement learning (called MARLABC) is presented for addressing the large-scale real value optimization problem in this study. Two stages including the training and the testing are introduced in the MARLABC via the multi-agent central controller to improve the convergence speed and local exploitation capability of the algorithm. The optimal strategy pool is constructed by training procedures via the multi-agent central controller with Q-learning mechanism. The effective strategy is selected from the optimal strategy pool for each agent during the testing process in the multi-agent central controller. The elite agents in the training population are reserved to generate the testing population to guide the search. The MARLABC algorithm is compared with the ABC variants and state-of-art algorithms on CEC 2017 benchmark problems. The stability and effectiveness of the MARLABC algorithm are confirmed by the experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous real-valued optimization problems are existed in various engineering optimization scenarios. The artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) which is inspired by the foraging behavior of bee colonies is an efficient optimization algorithm to address complex continuous real-valued optimization problems. In this paper, the maximum entropic epistasis (MEE) in the exploratory landscape analysis (ELA) is adopted in the ABC algorithm (MEEABC) to improve the performance of the ABC algorithm. The dimension interaction of the continuous functions computed by the MEE is introduced to guide the search process of the MEEABC algorithm during the employed bee phase and onlooker bee phase. The adaptive mutation methods and the strategy of dynamic population size reduction are implemented to increase the convergence speed and dynamically ameliorate the local exploitation capability. The solutions in the fitness landscape are automatically divided into different clusters to explore the local basin of the fitness landscape via the collaboration between MEE and adaptive mutation methods. The performance of MEEABC is tested on CEC 2017 benchmark test suite. From the experimental results, the MEEABC is superior to ABC variants and state-of-art algorithms regarded with the performance of effectiveness and robustness. • The MEEABC based on exploratory landscape analysis is proposed. • The maximum entropic epistasis is utilized in the MEEABC algorithm to guide the optimization. • Adaptive mutation methods are implemented to adjust the search directions. • Dynamic population size reduction is introduced to reserve elite individuals. • The extended archive is utilized to prevent effective information from being discarded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]