Gaussian mutational chaotic fruit fly-built optimization and feature selection

•Gaussian mutation operator was introduced into FOA to avoid the premature convergence.•Chaotic local search method was adopted for enhancing the local search ability of FOA.•Extensive benchmark problems were used to verify the method. [Display omitted] To cope with the potential shortcomings of classical fruit fly optimization algorithm (FOA), a new version of FOA with Gaussian mutation operator and the chaotic local search strategy (MCFOA) is proposed in this research. First, the Gaussian mutation operator is introduced into the basic FOA to avoid premature convergence and improve the exploitative tendencies in the algorithm (MFOA). Then, chaotic local search method is adopted for enhancing the local searching ability of the swarm of agents (CFOA). To substantiate the efficiency of three proposed methods, a comprehensive comparison has been completed using 23 benchmark functions with different characteristics. The best version of FOA among them is the MCFOA, which is extensively compared with the notable swarm-intelligence algorithms like bat algorithm (BA), particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO), and several advanced FOA-based methods such as chaotic FOA (CIFOA), improved FOA (IFOA), multi-swarm FOA (swarm_MFOA) and differential evolution based FOA (DFOA). Numerical results show that two embedded strategies will effectively boost the performance of FOA for optimization tasks. In addition, MCFOA is also applied to feature selection problems. The results also prove that MCFOA can obtain the optimal classification accuracy.