  Energy consumption is a fundamental concern in mobile application
development, bearing substantial significance for both developers and
end-users. Main objective of this research is to propose a novel neural
network-based framework, enhanced by a metaheuristic approach, to achieve
robust energy prediction in the context of mobile app development. The
metaheuristic approach here aims to achieve two goals: 1) identifying suitable
learning algorithms and their corresponding hyperparameters, and 2) determining
the optimal number of layers and neurons within each layer. Moreover, due to
limitations in accessing certain aspects of a mobile phone, there might be
missing data in the data set, and the proposed framework can handle this. In
addition, we conducted an optimal algorithm selection strategy, employing 13
base and advanced metaheuristic algorithms, to identify the best algorithm
based on accuracy and resistance to missing values. The representation in our
proposed metaheuristic algorithm is variable-size, meaning that the length of
the candidate solutions changes over time. We compared the algorithms based on
the architecture found by each algorithm at different levels of missing values,
accuracy, F-measure, and stability analysis. Additionally, we conducted a
Wilcoxon signed-rank test for statistical comparison of the results. The
extensive experiments show that our proposed approach significantly improves
energy consumption prediction. Particularly, the JADE algorithm, a variant of
Differential Evolution (DE), DE, and the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution
Strategy deliver superior results under various conditions and across different
missing value levels.
