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An Improved Multi-agent Approach for Solving Large Traveling Salesman Problem

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Book cover Agent Computing and Multi-Agent Systems (PRIMA 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4088))

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Abstract

The traveling salesman problem (TSP) is a very hard optimization problem in the field of operations research. It has been shown to be NP-hard, and is an often-used benchmark for new optimization techniques. This paper pro- poses an improved multi-agent approach for solving large TSP. This proposed approach mainly includes three kinds of agents with different function. The first kind of agent is conformation agent and its function is generating the new solution continuously. The second kind of agent is optimization agent and its function is optimizing the current solutions group. The third kind of agent is refining agent and its function is refining the best solution from the beginning of the trial. At same time, there are many sub-agents in each kind of agent. These sub-agents accomplish the task of its superior agent cooperatively. At the end of this paper, the experimental results have shown that the proposed hybrid approach has good performance with respect to the quality of solution and the speed of computation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute, of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Yu-An Tan, Xue-Lan Zhang & Shu-Wu Wang

  2. Information management college, Shandong Economic University, Jinan, 250014, P.R. China

    Xin-Hua Zhang

  3. The Department of Management, School of Information System and Management, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, P.R. China

    Li-Ning Xing

Authors
  1. Yu-An Tan
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  2. Xin-Hua Zhang
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  3. Li-Ning Xing
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  4. Xue-Lan Zhang
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  5. Shu-Wu Wang
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Intelligent Information Processing, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100080, Beijing

    Zhong-Zhi Shi

  2. Asian Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 4, 12120, Klong Luang, Pathumthani, Thailand

    Ramakoti Sadananda

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Tan, YA., Zhang, XH., Xing, LN., Zhang, XL., Wang, SW. (2006). An Improved Multi-agent Approach for Solving Large Traveling Salesman Problem. In: Shi, ZZ., Sadananda, R. (eds) Agent Computing and Multi-Agent Systems. PRIMA 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4088. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11802372_34

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11802372_34

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-36707-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36860-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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