Three Strategies Enhance the Bionic Coati Optimization Algorithm for Global Optimization and Feature Selection Problems

With the advancement of industrial digitization, utilizing large datasets for model training to boost performance is a pivotal technical approach for industry progress. However, raw training datasets often contain abundant redundant features, which increase model training's computational cost and impair generalization ability. To tackle this, this study proposes the bionic ABCCOA algorithm, an enhanced version of the bionic Coati Optimization Algorithm (COA), to improve redundant feature elimination in datasets. To address the bionic COA's inadequate global search performance in feature selection (FS) problems, leading to lower classification accuracy, an adaptive search strategy is introduced. This strategy combines individual learning capability and the learnability of disparities, enhancing global exploration. For the imbalance between the exploration and exploitation phases in the bionic COA algorithm when solving FS problems, which often traps it in suboptimal feature subsets, a balancing factor is proposed. By integrating phase control and dynamic adjustability, a good balance between the two phases is achieved, reducing the likelihood of getting stuck in suboptimal subsets. Additionally, to counter the bionic COA's insufficient local exploitation performance in FS problems, increasing classification error rates, a centroid guidance strategy is presented. By combining population centroid guidance and fractional-order historical memory, the algorithm lowers the classification error rate of feature subsets and speeds up convergence. The bionic ABCCOA algorithm was tested on the CEC2020 test functions and engineering problem, achieving an over 90% optimization success rate and faster convergence, confirming its efficiency. Applied to 27 FS problems, it outperformed comparative algorithms in best, average, and worst fitness function values, classification accuracy, feature subset size, and running time, proving it an efficient and robust FS algorithm.