Anti-coronavirus optimization algorithm

This paper introduces a new swarm intelligence strategy, anti-coronavirus optimization (ACVO) algorithm. This algorithm is a multi-agent strategy, in which each agent is a person that tries to stay healthy and slow down the spread of COVID-19 by observing the containment protocols. The algorithm composed of three main steps: social distancing, quarantine, and isolation. In the social distancing phase, the algorithm attempts to maintain a safe physical distance between people and limit close contacts. In the quarantine phase, the algorithm quarantines the suspected people to prevent the spread of disease. Some people who have not followed the health protocols and infected by the virus should be taken care of to get a full recovery. In the isolation phase, the algorithm cared for the infected people to recover their health. The algorithm iteratively applies these operators on the population to find the fittest and healthiest person. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on standard multi-variable single-objective optimization problems and compared with several counterpart algorithms. The results show the superiority of ACVO on most test problems compared with its counterparts.