Aiming at the shortcoming that the basic beetle antennae search algorithm fails to consider the differences between individuals and dynamic information in the searching process, this paper proposed a new search algorithm based on the elite selection mechanism and the neighbor mobility strategy. The elitist selection mechanism is used to weaken beetles having bad performance and generate new beetles to ensure diversity and adaptability in the whole population. The neighbor mobility strategy will guide the algorithm to open up a wider searching area to ensure that individuals having good positions owns a chance to infect individuals with poor performances. To verify the searching ability and the optimization speed of the proposed algorithm in this paper, different testing functions were selected for numerical testing experiments, and the iteration figures, box plots, and searching path figures were given to conduct a comprehensive statistical test and analysis. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm in this paper is superior to the original algorithm and other comparative algorithms in solving accuracy, convergence speed, and stability.INDEX TERMS Beetle antennae search algorithm, numerical problems, global optimization.