A new K-means grey wolf algorithm for engineering problems

Purpose: This paper aims at studying meta-heuristic algorithms. One of the common meta-heuristic optimization algorithms is called grey wolf optimization (GWO). The key aim is to enhance the limitations of the wolves' searching process of attacking gray wolves. Design/methodology/approach: The development of meta-heuristic algorithms has increased by researchers to use them extensively in the field of business, science and engineering. In this paper, the K-means clustering algorithm is used to enhance the performance of the original GWO; the new algorithm is called K-means clustering gray wolf optimization (KMGWO). Findings: Results illustrate the efficiency of KMGWO against to the GWO. To evaluate the performance of the KMGWO, KMGWO applied to solve CEC2019 benchmark test functions. Originality/value: Results prove that KMGWO is superior to GWO. KMGWO is also compared to cat swarm optimization (CSO), whale optimization algorithm-bat algorithm (WOA-BAT), WOA and GWO so KMGWO achieved the first rank in terms of performance. In addition, the KMGWO is used to solve a classical engineering problem and it is superior.