<p>Note: This paper has been accepted by the journal of neural computing and applications.</p><p><br></p><p>A
recent metaheuristic algorithm, such as Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), was
proposed. The idea of proposing this algorithm belongs to the hunting behavior
of the humpback whale. However, WOA suffers from poor performance in the
exploitation phase and stagnates in the local best solution. Grey Wolf
Optimization (GWO) is a very competitive algorithm comparing to other common
metaheuristic algorithms as it has a super performance in the exploitation
phase while it is tested on unimodal benchmark functions. Therefore, the aim of
this paper is to hybridize GWO with WOA to overcome the problems. GWO can
perform well in exploiting optimal solutions. In this paper, a hybridized WOA with
GWO which is called WOAGWO is presented. The proposed hybridized model consists
of two steps. Firstly, the hunting mechanism of GWO is embedded into the WOA
exploitation phase with a new condition which is related to GWO. Secondly, a new
technique is added to the exploration phase to improve the solution after each
iteration. Experimentations are tested on three different standard test
functions which are called benchmark functions: 23 common functions, 25 CEC2005
functions and 10 CEC2019 functions. The proposed WOAGWO is also evaluated
against original WOA, GWO and three other commonly used algorithms. Results
show that WOAGWO outperforms other algorithms depending on the Wilcoxon
rank-sum test. Finally, WOAGWO is likewise applied to solve an engineering problem
such as pressure vessel design. Then the results prove that WOAGWO achieves
optimum solution which is better than WOA and Fitness Dependent Optimizer (FDO).</p>