The recently invented artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is an optimization algorithm based on swarm intelligence that has been used to solve many kinds of numerical function optimization problems. It performs well in most cases, however, there still exists an insufficiency in the ABC algorithm that ignores the fitness of related pairs of individuals in the mechanism of finding a neighboring food source. This paper presents an improved ABC algorithm with mutual learning (MutualABC) that adjusts the produced candidate food source with the higher fitness between two individuals selected by a mutual learning factor. The performance of the improved MutualABC algorithm is tested on a set of benchmark functions and compared with the basic ABC algorithm and some classical versions of improved ABC algorithms. The experimental results show that the MutualABC algorithm with appropriate parameters outperforms other ABC algorithms in most experiments.

Electricity demands are increasing significantly and the traditional power grid system is facing huge challenges. As the desired next-generation power grid system, smart grid can provide secure and reliable power generation, and consumption, and can also realize the system’s coordinated and intelligent power distribution. Coordinating grid power distribution usually requires mutual communication between power distributors to accomplish coordination. However, the power network is complex, the network nodes are far apart, and the communication bandwidth is often expensive. Therefore, how to reduce the communication bandwidth in the cooperative power distribution process task is crucially important. One way to tackle this problem is to build mechanisms to selectively send out communications, which allow distributors to send information at certain moments and key states. The distributors in the power grid are modeled as reinforcement learning agents, and the communication bandwidth in the power grid can be reduced by optimizing the communication frequency between agents. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a model for deciding whether to communicate based on the causal inference method, Causal Inference Communication Model (CICM). CICM regards whether to communicate as a binary intervention variable, and determines which intervention is more effective by estimating the individual treatment effect (ITE). It offers the optimal communication strategy about whether to send information while ensuring task completion. This method effectively reduces the communication frequency between grid distributors, and at the same time maximizes the power distribution effect. In addition, we test the method in StarCraft II and 3D environment habitation experiments, which fully proves the effectiveness of the method.