Nature-Inspired Optimisation Approaches and the New Plant Propagation Algorithm

Nature-inspired algorithms are proving to be very successful on complex optimisation problems. A new algorithm, inspired by the way plants, and in particular the strawberry plant, propagate is presented. The algorithm is explained, tested on standard test functions, and compared with the well known Nelder-Mead algorithm. The new approach is then applied to a complex process design problem that arises in Chlorobenzene purification, a problem that exhibits strong nonlinear behaviour and has a small feasible region.