Beam-ACO for the travelling salesman problem with time windows

The travelling salesman problem with time windows is a difficult optimization problem that arises, for example, in logistics. This paper deals with the minimization of the travel cost. For solving this problem, this paper proposes a Beam-ACO algorithm, which is a hybrid method that combines ant colo...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: López Ibáñez, Manuel, Blum, Christian
Tipo de recurso: informe técnico
Fecha de publicación:2009
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/88010
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/88010
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Ant colony optimization
Beam search
Hybridization
Travelling salesman
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Informàtica teòrica
Descripción
Sumario:The travelling salesman problem with time windows is a difficult optimization problem that arises, for example, in logistics. This paper deals with the minimization of the travel cost. For solving this problem, this paper proposes a Beam-ACO algorithm, which is a hybrid method that combines ant colony optimization with beam search. In general, Beam-ACO algorithms heavily rely on accurate and computationally inexpensive bounding information for differentiating between partial solutions. This work uses stochastic sampling as a useful alternative. An extensive experimental evaluation on seven benchmark sets from the literature shows that the proposed Beam-ACO algorithm is currently a state-of-the-art technique for the travelling salesman problem with time windows under travel-cost optimization.