This paper proposes a novel optimization method inspired by radar technology: Wave Search Algorithm (WSA). The WSA algorithm not only draws on engineering techniques for its unique algorithmic design for the first time but also utilizes the gradient information of the problem to be optimized and employs a variety of improved greedy mechanisms, making it accurate, efficient, flexible, and highly adaptable. The superiority of the WSA algorithm is experimentally demonstrated by testing it with a rich set of test functions ( 23 benchmark test functions and 30 CEC2017 test functions) and comparing it with state-of-the-art and highly cited algorithms. Finally, the WSA algorithm is applied to six engineering problems. Experimental results show that the optimization ability of WSA algorithm is better than other state-of-the-art optimization algorithms, and it can efficiently solve practical engineering problems.