An efficient multilevel thresholding segmentation method based on improved chimp optimization algorithm

To improve the traditional image segmentation, an efficient multilevel thresholding segmentation method based on improved Chimp Optimization Algorithm (IChOA) is developed in this paper. Kapur entropy is utilized as the objective function. The best threshold values for RGB images’ three channels are found using IChOA. Meanwhile, several strategies are introduced including population initialization strategy combining with Gaussian chaos and opposition-based learning, the position update mechanism of particle swarm algorithm (PSO), the Gaussian-Cauchy mutation and the adaptive nonlinear strategy. These methods enable the IChOA to raise the diversity of the population and enhance both the exploration and exploitation. Additionally, the search ability, accuracy and stability of IChOA have been significantly enhanced. To prove the superiority of the IChOA based multilevel thresholding segmentation method, a comparison experiment is conducted between IChOA and 5 six meta-heuristic algorithms using 12 test functions, which fully demonstrate that IChOA can obtain high-quality solutions and almost does not suffer from premature convergence. Furthermore, by using 10 standard test images the IChOA-based multilevel thresholding image segmentation method is compared with other peers and evaluated the segmentation results using 5 evaluation indicators with the average fitness value, PSNR, SSIM, FSIM and computational time. The experimental results reveal that the presented IChOA-based multilevel thresholding image segmentation method has tremendous potential to be utilized as an image segmentation method for color images because it can be an effective swarm intelligence optimization method that can maintain a delicate balance during the segmentation process of color images.