Billiards Optimization Algorithm: A New Game-Based Metaheuristic Approach

Metaheuristic algorithms are one of the most widely used stochastic approaches in solving optimization problems. In this paper, a new metaheuristic algorithm entitled Billiards Optimization Algorithm (BOA) is proposed and designed to be used in optimization applications. The fundamental inspiration in BOA design is the behavior of the players and the rules of the billiards game. Various steps of BOA are described and then its mathematical model is thoroughly explained. The efficiency of BOA in dealing with optimization problems is evaluated through optimizing twenty-three standard benchmark functions of different types including unimodal, high-dimensional multimodal, and fixed-dimensional multimodal functions. In order to analyze the quality of the results obtained by BOA, the performance of the proposed approach is compared with ten well-known algorithms. The simulation results show that BOA, with its high exploration and exploitation abilities, achieves an impressive performance in providing solutions to objective functions and is superior and far more competitive compared to the ten competitor algorithms.