Bibliometric Analysis of Animal-Inspired Optimization Algorithms in Computer Science and Engineering

Abstract

Animal-inspired optimization algorithms have been widely explored and used in many disciplines. This paper investigates research trends and application patterns of animal-inspired optimization algorithms over a twenty-year period across computer science and engineering-related Web of Science (WoS) database categories. The results are gathered from the Web of Science (WoS) platform and analyzed using WoS-embedded tools and the VOSViewer software. We built a complex query and found over 19000 results. An increasing publication trend is confirmed for the period 2004-2023. The most influential authors and authorship connections are stated. Some very old algorithms (like Ant Colony from 1991) are still used frequently, however the most used in the explored areas is Grey Wolf (from 2014). Also, there are very recent ones such as Harris Hawks (from 2019) and Manta Ray (from 2020) being frequently used in specific engineering sub-areas. The keyword co-occurrence clustering discovered the sub disciplines where animal-inspired algorithms are used. Recently, the proliferation has been indicated in the artificial intelligence field, where animal-inspired optimization is used in hybrid algorithms and techniques.