5,239 research outputs found
A Memetic Algorithm for the Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem
The generalized traveling salesman problem (GTSP) is an extension of the
well-known traveling salesman problem. In GTSP, we are given a partition of
cities into groups and we are required to find a minimum length tour that
includes exactly one city from each group. The recent studies on this subject
consider different variations of a memetic algorithm approach to the GTSP. The
aim of this paper is to present a new memetic algorithm for GTSP with a
powerful local search procedure. The experiments show that the proposed
algorithm clearly outperforms all of the known heuristics with respect to both
solution quality and running time. While the other memetic algorithms were
designed only for the symmetric GTSP, our algorithm can solve both symmetric
and asymmetric instances.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Natural Computing, Springer, available online:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/5v4568l492272865/?p=e1779dd02e4d4cbfa49d0d27b19b929f&pi=1
An Efficient Hybrid Ant Colony System for the Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem
The Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem (GTSP) is an extension of the
well-known Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), where the node set is partitioned
into clusters, and the objective is to find the shortest cycle visiting each
cluster exactly once. In this paper, we present a new hybrid Ant Colony System
(ACS) algorithm for the symmetric GTSP. The proposed algorithm is a
modification of a simple ACS for the TSP improved by an efficient GTSP-specific
local search procedure. Our extensive computational experiments show that the
use of the local search procedure dramatically improves the performance of the
ACS algorithm, making it one of the most successful GTSP metaheuristics to
date.Comment: 7 page
Phase Transitions and Backbones of the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem
In recent years, there has been much interest in phase transitions of
combinatorial problems. Phase transitions have been successfully used to
analyze combinatorial optimization problems, characterize their typical-case
features and locate the hardest problem instances. In this paper, we study
phase transitions of the asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem (ATSP), an
NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem that has many real-world
applications. Using random instances of up to 1,500 cities in which intercity
distances are uniformly distributed, we empirically show that many properties
of the problem, including the optimal tour cost and backbone size, experience
sharp transitions as the precision of intercity distances increases across a
critical value. Our experimental results on the costs of the ATSP tours and
assignment problem agree with the theoretical result that the asymptotic cost
of assignment problem is pi ^2 /6 the number of cities goes to infinity. In
addition, we show that the average computational cost of the well-known
branch-and-bound subtour elimination algorithm for the problem also exhibits a
thrashing behavior, transitioning from easy to difficult as the distance
precision increases. These results answer positively an open question regarding
the existence of phase transitions in the ATSP, and provide guidance on how
difficult ATSP problem instances should be generated
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