The key to the problem of node coverage in wireless sensor networks (WSN) is to deploy a limited number of sensors to achieve maximum coverage. This paper studies the hybrid strategies of multiple evolutionary algorithms, and applies them to the problem of WSN node coverage. We first proposed the hybrid algorithm SFLA‐WOA (SWOA) based on Shuffled Frog Leaping Algorithm (SFLA) and Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA). The SWOA algorithm combines the advantages of SFLA and WOA; that is, it retains the unique evolution model of WOA and also has the excellent co‐evolution capability of SFLA. Secondly, using the mutation, crossover and selection operations of the differential evolution (DE) algorithm to further optimize this hybrid algorithm, the SWOA‐based SFLA‐WOA‐DE (SWOAD) algorithm is proposed. In addition, the performance of SWOA and SWOAD has been tested by 30 benchmark functions in the CEC 2017 test set. Experimental results show that the optimization effects of these two algorithms are very outstanding. Finally, the simulation results show that the optimization algorithm proposed in this paper has a good effect on improving the signal coverage of WSN under the actual three‐dimensional terrain.

Meta-heuristic algorithms are widely used in complex problems that cannot be solved by traditional computing methods due to their powerful optimization capabilities. However, for high-complexity problems, the fitness function evaluation may take hours or even days to complete. The surrogate-assisted meta-heuristic algorithm effectively solves this kind of long solution time for the fitness function. Therefore, this paper proposes an efficient surrogate-assisted hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm by combining the surrogate-assisted model with gannet optimization algorithm (GOA) and the differential evolution (DE) algorithm, abbreviated as SAGD. We explicitly propose a new add-point strategy based on information from historical surrogate models, using information from historical surrogate models to allow the selection of better candidates for the evaluation of true fitness values and the local radial basis function (RBF) surrogate to model the landscape of the objective function. The control strategy selects two efficient meta-heuristic algorithms to predict the training model samples and perform updates. A generation-based optimal restart strategy is also incorporated in SAGD to select suitable samples to restart the meta-heuristic algorithm. We tested the SAGD algorithm using seven commonly used benchmark functions and the wireless sensor network (WSN) coverage problem. The results show that the SAGD algorithm performs well in solving expensive optimization problems.