Rámec pro plánování problémy

Import 22/07/2015Scheduling problems form an important subclass of combinatorial optimisation problems with many applications in manufacturing and logistics. Predominately these problems are NP-complete (decision based) and NP-hard (optimisation based), hence the main course of research in solving them concentrates on the design of efficient heuristic algorithms. Two main categories of these algorithms exist: deterministic algorithms and evolutionary metaheuristics. The deterministic algorithms comprise local improvement techniques, such as k-opt algorithm, which try to improve existing feasible solution, and constructive heuristics, such as NEH, which build a solution starting from scratch, adding one job at a time. Evolutionary metaheuristics have prospered in the past decades, owing to their efficiency and flexibility. Drawing inspiration from the theory of natural evolution or swarm behavioural patterns, the most popular of these algorithms in practice include for instance Genetic Algorithms, Differential Evolution, Particle Swarm Optimisation, amongst others. However, even though these heuristics provide in most cases close to optimal solution at reasonable execution time, this time is still impractically long for many applications. Therefore much effort has been dedicated to accelerating these algorithms. Since the development of hardware turns away from increasing the clock speed towards the parallel processing units, owing to reaching the limits of technology due to the increased power consumption and heat dissipation, this effort goes into parallelisation of the existing algorithms, to enable exploitation of the computing power of multi-core or many-core platforms. This is the goal of the first part of the thesis, accelerating two of the deterministic algorithms, NEH and 2-opt, with interesting results. Another approach has been taken in the second part, with the core premise of exploring the influence of stochasticity on the performance of an evolutionary algorithm, selecting the relatively recent and promising Discrete Artificial Bee Colony algorithm. The pseudo-random number generator has been replaced with the different types of dissipative chaos maps, with some of them improving the algorithm significantly. It has been shown that the population based evolutionary algorithms often form complex networks, taken from the point of view of the information exchange between individual solutions during the course of population development. The final part of this thesis puts this observation into practice by embedding the complex network analysis based self-adaptive mechanism into the ABC algorithm, a continuous optimisation problems solving evolutionary algorithm, which is however the basis for the afore mentioned DABC algorithm, and proving the effectiveness for some of the developed versions, currently on the standard continuous optimisation test functions, with the possibility to extend this modification to the combinatorial optimisations problems in the future being discussed in the conclusion.Rozvrhovací problémy jsou důležitou podtřídou úloh kombinatorické optimalizace s řadou aplikací ve výrobě a logistice. Většina těchto problémů je NP-úplných (rozhodovací forma) a NP-těžkých (optimalizační forma), proto se výzkum zaměřuje na návrh efektivních heuristických algoritmů. Dvě hlavní kategorie těchto algoritmů jsou deterministické algoritmy a evoluční metaheuristiky. Deterministické algoritmy zahrnují techniky lokálního prohledávání, například algoritmus k-opt, jejichž cílem je zlepšení existujícího přípustného řešení problému, dále pak konstruktivní heuristiky, jejichž příkladem je algoritmus NEH, které hledané řešení vytvářejí inkrementálně, bez potřeby znalosti vstupního bodu v prohledávaném prostoru řešení. Evoluční metaheuristiky mají za sebou historii úspěšného vývoje v posledních desetiletích, zejména díky jejich efektivitě a flexibilitě. Jejich inspirací jsou poznatky převzaté z biologie, teorie evoluce a inteligence hejna. Mezi nejpopulárnějšími z těchto algoritmů jsou, mimo jiné, genetické algoritmy, diferenciální evoluce, rojení částic (Particle Swarm Optimisation). Ačkoli tyto heuristiky nalézají ve většině případů řešení blížící se globálnímu optimu v přípustném výpočetním čase, pro řadu aplikací mohou být stále ještě nepřijatelně pomalé. Velké úsilí bylo věnováno zrychlení těchto algoritmů. Protože se vývoj hardware díky dosažení technologických limitů, vzhledem ke zvyšující se spotřebě energie a tepelnému vyzařování, obrací od zvyšování frekvence jednojádrového procesoru k vícejádrovým procesorům a paralelnímu zpracování, je tato snaha většinou orientovaná na paralelizaci existujících algoritmů, aby bylo umožněno využití výpočetní síly vícejádrových platforem (multi-core a many-core). Prvním cílem této práce je tudíž akcelerace dvou deterministických algoritmů, NEH a 2-opt, přičemž bylo dosaženo zajímavých výsledků. Jiný přístup byl zvolen ve druhé části, s hlavní myšlenkou prozkoumání vlivu náhodnosti na výkon evolučního algoritmu. Za tímto účelem byl zvolen relativně nový a slibný algoritmus Discrete Artificial Bee Colony. Generátor pseudonáhodných čísel byl nahrazen několika různými chaotickými mapami, z nichž některé znatelně zlepšily výsledky algoritmu. Bylo ukázáno, že evoluční algoritmy založené na populaci často formují komplexní sítě, vzato z pohledu výměny informací mezi jednotlivými řešeními v populaci během jejího vývoje. Závěrečná část práce aplikuje toto pozorování vložením samo přizpůsobivého mechanismu založeném na analýze komplexní sítě do algoritmu ABC, který je evolučním algoritmem pro spojitou optimalizaci a zároveň základem dříve zmíněného DABC algoritmu. Efektivita několika verzí algoritmu založeném na této myšlence je dokázána na standardní sadě testovacích funkcí pro spojitou optimalizaci. Možnost rozšíření této modifikace na kombinatorické optimalizační problémy je diskutována v závěru práce.460 - Katedra informatikyvýborn

Stability Analysis of Artificial Bee Colony Optimization Algorithm

Theoretical analysis of swarm intelligence and evolutionary algorithms is relatively less explored area of research. Stability and convergence analysis of swarm intelligence and evolutionary algorithms can help the researchers to fine tune the parameter values. This paper presents the stability analysis of a famous Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) optimization algorithm using von Neumann stability criterion for two-level finite difference scheme. Parameter selection for the ABC algorithm is recommended based on the obtained stability conditions. The findings are also validated through numerical experiments on test problems

Enhancement of bees algorithm for global optimisation

This research focuses on the improvement of the Bees Algorithm, a swarm-based nature-inspired optimisation algorithm that mimics the foraging behaviour of honeybees. The algorithm consists of exploitation and exploration, the two key elements of optimisation techniques that help to find the global optimum in optimisation problems. This thesis presents three new approaches to the Bees Algorithm in a pursuit to improve its convergence speed and accuracy. The first proposed algorithm focuses on intensifying the local search area by incorporating Hooke and Jeeves’ method in its exploitation mechanism. This direct search method contains a pattern move that works well in the new variant named “Bees Algorithm with Hooke and Jeeves” (BA-HJ). The second proposed algorithm replaces the randomly generated recruited bees deployment method with chaotic sequences using a well-known logistic map. This new variant called “Bees Algorithm with Chaos” (ChaosBA) was intended to use the characteristic of chaotic sequences to escape from local optima and at the same time maintain the diversity of the population. The third improvement uses the information of the current best solutions to create new candidate solutions probabilistically using the Estimation Distribution Algorithm (EDA) approach. This new version is called Bees Algorithm with Estimation Distribution (BAED). Simulation results show that these proposed algorithms perform better than the standard BA, SPSO2011 and qABC in terms of convergence for the majority of the tested benchmark functions. The BA-HJ outperformed the standard BA in thirteen out of fifteen benchmark functions and is more effective in eleven out of fifteen benchmark functions when compared to SPSO2011 and qABC. In the case of the ChaosBA, the algorithm outperformed the standard BA in twelve out of fifteen benchmark functions and significantly better in eleven out of fifteen test functions compared to qABC and SPSO2011. BAED discovered the optimal solution with the least number of evaluations in fourteen out of fifteen cases compared to the standard BA, and eleven out of fifteen functions compared to SPSO2011 and qABC. Furthermore, the results on a set of constrained mechanical design problems also show that the performance of the proposed algorithms is comparable to those of the standard BA and other swarm-based algorithms from the literature

A Comprehensive Survey on Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm and Its Applications

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a heuristic global optimization method, proposed originally by Kennedy and Eberhart in 1995. It is now one of the most commonly used optimization techniques. This survey presented a comprehensive investigation of PSO. On one hand, we provided advances with PSO, including its modifications (including quantum-behaved PSO, bare-bones PSO, chaotic PSO, and fuzzy PSO), population topology (as fully connected, von Neumann, ring, star, random, etc.), hybridization (with genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, Tabu search, artificial immune system, ant colony algorithm, artificial bee colony, differential evolution, harmonic search, and biogeography-based optimization), extensions (to multiobjective, constrained, discrete, and binary optimization), theoretical analysis (parameter selection and tuning, and convergence analysis), and parallel implementation (in multicore, multiprocessor, GPU, and cloud computing forms). On the other hand, we offered a survey on applications of PSO to the following eight fields: electrical and electronic engineering, automation control systems, communication theory, operations research, mechanical engineering, fuel and energy, medicine, chemistry, and biology. It is hoped that this survey would be beneficial for the researchers studying PSO algorithms

A parameter-free discrete particle swarm algorithm and its application to multi-objective pavement maintenance schemes

Regular maintenance is paramount for a healthy road network, the arteries of any economy. As the resources for maintenance are limited, optimization is necessary. A number of conflicting objectives exist with many influencing variables. Although many methods have been proposed, the related research is very active, due to difficulties in adoption to the actual practice owing to reasons such high-dimensional problems even for small road networks. Literature survey tells that particle swarms have not been exploited much, mainly due to unavailability of many techniques in this domain for multi-objective discrete problems like this. In this work, a novel particle swarm algorithm is proposed for a general, discrete, multi-objective problem. In contrast to the standard particle swarm, the bare-bones technique has a clear advantage in that it is a parameter-free technique, hence the end users need not be optimization experts. However, the existing barebones algorithm is available only for continuous domains, sans any particle velocity terms. For discrete domains, the proposed method introduces a parameter-free velocity term to the standard bare-bones algorithm. Based on the peak velocities observed by the different dimensions of a particle, its new position is calculated. A number of benchmark test functions are also solved. The results show that the proposed algorithm is highly competitive and able to obtain much better spread of solutions compared to three other existing PSO and genetic algorithms. The method is benchmarked against a number of other algorithms on an actual pavement maintenance problem. When compared against another particle swarm algorithm, it not only shows better performance, but also significant reduction in run-time compared to other POS algorithm. Hence, for large road network maintenance, the proposed method shows a lot of promise in terms of analysis time, while improving on the quality of solutions

Differential Evolution and Deterministic Chaotic Series: A Detailed Study

This research represents a detailed insight into the modern and popular hybridization of deterministic chaotic dynamics and evolutionary computation. It is aimed at the influence of chaotic sequences on the performance of four selected Differential Evolution (DE) variants. The variants of interest were: original DE/Rand/1/ and DE/Best/1/ mutation schemes, simple parameter adaptive jDE, and the recent state of the art version SHADE. Experiments are focused on the extensive investigation of the different randomization schemes for the selection of individuals in DE algorithm driven by the nine different two-dimensional discrete deterministic chaotic systems, as the chaotic pseudorandom number generators. The performances of DE variants and their chaotic/non-chaotic versions are recorded in the one-dimensional settings of 10D and 15 test functions from the CEC 2015 benchmark, further statistically analyzed

A comprehensive survey on cultural algorithms

Peer reviewedPostprin

The multiple pheromone Ant clustering algorithm

Ant Colony Optimisation algorithms mimic the way ants use pheromones for marking paths to important locations. Pheromone traces are followed and reinforced by other ants, but also evaporate over time. As a consequence, optimal paths attract more pheromone, whilst the less useful paths fade away. In the Multiple Pheromone Ant Clustering Algorithm (MPACA), ants detect features of objects represented as nodes within graph space. Each node has one or more ants assigned to each feature. Ants attempt to locate nodes with matching feature values, depositing pheromone traces on the way. This use of multiple pheromone values is a key innovation. Ants record other ant encounters, keeping a record of the features and colony membership of ants. The recorded values determine when ants should combine their features to look for conjunctions and whether they should merge into colonies. This ability to detect and deposit pheromone representative of feature combinations, and the resulting colony formation, renders the algorithm a powerful clustering tool. The MPACA operates as follows: (i) initially each node has ants assigned to each feature; (ii) ants roam the graph space searching for nodes with matching features; (iii) when departing matching nodes, ants deposit pheromones to inform other ants that the path goes to a node with the associated feature values; (iv) ant feature encounters are counted each time an ant arrives at a node; (v) if the feature encounters exceed a threshold value, feature combination occurs; (vi) a similar mechanism is used for colony merging. The model varies from traditional ACO in that: (i) a modified pheromone-driven movement mechanism is used; (ii) ants learn feature combinations and deposit multiple pheromone scents accordingly; (iii) ants merge into colonies, the basis of cluster formation. The MPACA is evaluated over synthetic and real-world datasets and its performance compares favourably with alternative approaches

Adaptive and learning-based formation control of swarm robots

Autonomous aerial and wheeled mobile robots play a major role in tasks such as search and rescue, transportation, monitoring, and inspection. However, these operations are faced with a few open challenges including robust autonomy, and adaptive coordination based on the environment and operating conditions, particularly in swarm robots with limited communication and perception capabilities. Furthermore, the computational complexity increases exponentially with the number of robots in the swarm. This thesis examines two different aspects of the formation control problem. On the one hand, we investigate how formation could be performed by swarm robots with limited communication and perception (e.g., Crazyflie nano quadrotor). On the other hand, we explore human-swarm interaction (HSI) and different shared-control mechanisms between human and swarm robots (e.g., BristleBot) for artistic creation. In particular, we combine bio-inspired (i.e., flocking, foraging) techniques with learning-based control strategies (using artificial neural networks) for adaptive control of multi- robots. We first review how learning-based control and networked dynamical systems can be used to assign distributed and decentralized policies to individual robots such that the desired formation emerges from their collective behavior. We proceed by presenting a novel flocking control for UAV swarm using deep reinforcement learning. We formulate the flocking formation problem as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), and consider a leader-follower configuration, where consensus among all UAVs is used to train a shared control policy, and each UAV performs actions based on the local information it collects. In addition, to avoid collision among UAVs and guarantee flocking and navigation, a reward function is added with the global flocking maintenance, mutual reward, and a collision penalty. We adapt deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) with centralized training and decentralized execution to obtain the flocking control policy using actor-critic networks and a global state space matrix. In the context of swarm robotics in arts, we investigate how the formation paradigm can serve as an interaction modality for artists to aesthetically utilize swarms. In particular, we explore particle swarm optimization (PSO) and random walk to control the communication between a team of robots with swarming behavior for musical creation

Macroscopic Traffic Model Validation of Large Networks and the Introduction of a Gradient Based Solver

Traffic models are important for the evaluation of various Intelligent Transport Systems and the development of new traffic infrastructure. In order for this to be done accurately and with confidence the correct parameter values of the model must be identified. The focus of this thesis is the identification and confirmation of these parameters, which is model validation. Validation is performed on two different models; the first-order CTM and the second-order METANET model. The CTM is validated for two UK sites of 7.8 and 21.9 km and METANET for the same two sites using a variety of meta-heuristic algorithms. This is done using a newly developed method to allow for the optimisation method to determine the number of parameters to be used and the spatial extent of their application. This allows for the removal of expert engineering knowledge and ad-hoc decomposition of networks. This thesis also develops a methodology by use of Automatic Differentiation to allow gradient based optimisation to be used. This approach successfully validated the METANET model for the 21.9 km site and also a large network surrounding the city of Manchester of 186.9 km. This proves that gradient based optimisation can be used for the macroscopic traffic model validation problem. In fact the performance of the developed gradient method is superior to the meta-heuristics tested for the same sites. The methodology defined also allows for more data to be obtained from the model such as its Jacobian and the sensitivity of the objective function being used relative to the individual parameters. Space-Time contour plots of this newly acquired data show structures and shock waves that are not visible in the mean speed contour diagrams