An improved flower pollination algorithm for solving nonlinear system of equations

It is difficult to solve a system of nonlinear equations, especially for higher-order nonlinear equations when we do not have an efficient and reliable algorithm, even though much work has been done in this area. Newton's method and its improved form are widely used at present, but their convergence and performance characteristics can be highly sensitive to the initial guess of the solution, and the methods fail if the initial guess of the solution is inopportune. It is difficult to select a good initial guess for most systems of nonlinear equations. For this reason, it is necessary to find an efficient algorithm for systems of nonlinear equations. Metaheuristic optimisation algorithms have been proposed by many researchers to solve systems of nonlinear equations. The flower pollination algorithm (FPA) is a novel metaheuristic optimisation algorithm with quick convergence, but its population diversity and convergence precision can be limited in some applications. To enhance its exploitation and exploration abilities, in this paper, an elite opposition-based flower pollination algorithm (EFPA) has been applied for solving systems of nonlinear equations. The results show that the proposed algorithm is robust, has high convergence rate and precision, and can give satisfactory solutions of nonlinear equations.