An Efficient Improved Harris Hawks Optimizer and Its Application to Form Deviation-Zone Evaluation

Evaluation of the deviation zone based on discrete measured points is crucial for quality control in manufacturing and metrology. However, deviation-zone evaluation is a highly nonlinear problem that is difficult to solve using traditional numerical optimization methods. Swarm intelligence has many advantages in solving this problem: it produces gradient-free, high-quality solutions and is characterized by its ease of implementation. Therefore, this study applies an improved Harris hawks algorithm (HHO) to tackle the problem. The average fitness is applied to replace the random operator in the exploration phase to solve the problem of conflicting exploration strategies due to randomness. In addition, the salp swarm algorithm (SSA) with a nonlinear inertia weight is embedded into the HHO, such that the superior explorative ability of SSA can fill the gap in the exploration of HHO. Finally, the optimal solution is greedily selected between SSA-based individuals and HHO-based individuals. The effectiveness of the proposed improved HHO optimizer is checked through a comparison with other swarm intelligence methods in typical benchmark problems. Moreover, the experimental results of form deviation-zone evaluation on primitive geometries show that the improved method can accurately solve various form deviations, providing an effective general solution for primitive geometries in the manufacturing and metrology fields.