Solving the Quadratic Assignment Problem with Cooperative Parallel Extremal Optimization

International audienceSeveral real-life applications can be stated in terms of the Quadratic Assignment Problem. Finding an optimal assignment is com-putationally very difficult, for many useful instances. We address this problem using a local search technique, based on Extremal Optimization and present experimental evidence that this approach is competitive. Moreover, cooperative parallel versions of our solver improve performance so much that large and hard instances can be solved quickly

Intensification strategies for extremal optimisation

It is only relatively recently that extremal optimisation (EO) has been applied to combinatorial optimisation problems. As such, there have been only a few attempts to extend the paradigm to include standard search mechanisms that are routinely used by other techniques such as genetic algorithms, tabu search and ant colony optimisation. The key way to begin this process is to augment EO with attributes that it naturally lacks. While EO does not get confounded by local optima and is able to move through search space unencumbered, one of the major issues is to provide it with better search intensification strategies. In this paper, two strategies that compliment EO's mechanics are introduced and are used to augment an existing solver framework. Results, for single and population versions of the algorithm, demonstrate that intensification aids the performance of EO.Full Tex