MECOA: A Multi-Strategy Enhanced Coati Optimization Algorithm for Global Optimization and Photovoltaic Models Parameter Estimation.

To address the limitations of the traditional Coati Optimization Algorithm (COA), such as insufficient global exploration, poor population cooperation, and low convergence efficiency in global optimization and photovoltaic (PV) model parameter identification, this paper proposes a Multi-strategy Enhanced Coati Optimization Algorithm (MECOA). MECOA improves performance through three core strategies: (1) Elite-guided search, which replaces the single global best solution with an elite pool of three top individuals and incorporates the heavy-tailed property of Lévy flights to balance large-step exploration and small-step exploitation; (2) Horizontal crossover, which simulates biological gene recombination to promote information sharing among individuals and enhance cooperative search efficiency; and (3) Precise elimination, which discards 20% of low-fitness individuals in each generation and generates new individuals around the best solution to improve population quality. Experiments on the CEC2017 (30/50/100-dimensional) and CEC2022 (20-dimensional) benchmark suites demonstrate that MECOA achieves superior performance. On CEC2017, MECOA ranks first with an average rank of 1.87, 2.07, 1.83, outperforming the second-best LSHADE (2.03, 2.43 and 2.63) and the original COA (9.93, 9.93 and 9.96). On CEC2022, MECOA also maintains the leading position with an average rank of 1.58, far surpassing COA (8.92). Statistical analysis using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test (significance level 0.05) confirms the superiority of MECOA. Furthermore, MECOA is applied to parameter identification of single-diode (SDM) and double-diode (DDM) PV models. Experiments based on real measurement data show that the SDM model achieves an RMSE of 9.8610 × 10-4, which is only 1/20 of that of COA. For the DDM model, the fitted curves almost perfectly overlap with the experimental data, with a total integrated absolute error (IAE) of only 0.021555 A. These results fully validate the effectiveness and reliability of MECOA in solving complex engineering optimization problems, providing a robust and efficient solution for accurate modeling and optimization of PV systems.