A Novel Plant Root Foraging Algorithm for Image Segmentation Problems

• Main Authors: Lianbo Ma, Kunyuan Hu, Yunlong Zhu, Hanning Chen, Maowei He
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2014-01-01
• Series: Mathematical Problems in Engineering
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/471209

This paper presents a new type of biologically-inspired global optimization methodology for image segmentation based on plant root foraging behavior, namely, artificial root foraging algorithm (ARFO). The essential motive of ARFO is to imitate the significant characteristics of plant root foraging behavior including branching, regrowing, and tropisms for constructing a heuristic algorithm for multidimensional and multimodal problems. A mathematical model is firstly designed to abstract various plant root foraging patterns. Then, the basic process of ARFO algorithm derived in the model is described in details. When tested against ten benchmark functions, ARFO shows the superiority to other state-of-the-art algorithms on several benchmark functions. Further, we employed the ARFO algorithm to deal with multilevel threshold image segmentation problem. Experimental results of the new algorithm on a variety of images demonstrated the suitability of the proposed method for solving such problem.