Hybrid flower pollination algorithm strategies for t-way test suite generation

PLoS One. 2018 May 2;13(5):e0195187. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195187. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The application of meta-heuristic algorithms for t-way testing has recently become prevalent. Consequently, many useful meta-heuristic algorithms have been developed on the basis of the implementation of t-way strategies (where t indicates the interaction strength). Mixed results have been reported in the literature to highlight the fact that no single strategy appears to be superior compared with other configurations. The hybridization of two or more algorithms can enhance the overall search capabilities, that is, by compensating the limitation of one algorithm with the strength of others. Thus, hybrid variants of the flower pollination algorithm (FPA) are proposed in the current work. Four hybrid variants of FPA are considered by combining FPA with other algorithmic components. The experimental results demonstrate that FPA hybrids overcome the problems of slow convergence in the original FPA and offers statistically superior performance compared with existing t-way strategies in terms of test suite size.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Flowers / physiology*
  • Models, Biological*
  • Pollination*

Grants and funding

The work undertaken in this paper is supported by the Fundamental Research Grant: Reinforcement Learning Sine Cosine based Strategy for Combinatorial Test Suite Generation (grant no: RDU170103) from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.