Skip to main content

Learning-Based Multi-agent System for Solving Combinatorial Optimization Problems: A New Architecture

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Hybrid Artificial Intelligent Systems (HAIS 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9121))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Solving combinatorial optimization problems is an important challenge in all engineering applications. Researchers have been extensively solving these problems using evolutionary computations. This paper introduces a novel learning-based multi-agent system (LBMAS) in which all agents cooperate by acting on a common population and a two-stage archive containing promising fitness-based and positional-based solutions found so far. Metaheuristics as agents perform their own method individually and then share their outcomes. This way, even though individual performance may be low, collaboration of metaheuristics leads the system to reach high performance. In this system, solutions are modified by all running metaheuristics and the system learns gradually how promising metaheuristics are, in order to apply them based on their effectiveness. Finally, the performance of LBMAS is experimentally evaluated on Multiprocessor Scheduling Problem (MSP) which is an outstanding combinatorial optimization problem. Obtained results in comparison to well-known competitors show that our multi-agent system achieves better results in reasonable running times.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Goldberg, D.E.: Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Machine Learning. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Boston (1989)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Acan, A., Unveren, A.: A two-stage memory powered Great Deluge algorithm for global optimization. J. Soft Comput. (2014).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Price, K.V.: An introduction to differential evolution. In: Corne, D., Dorgio, M., Glover, F., Dasgupta, D., Moscato, P., Poli, R., Price, K.V. (eds.) New Ideas in Optimization. McGraw-Hill, London (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Storn, R., Price, K.: Differential evolution - a simple and efficient heuristic for global optimization over continuous spaces. J. Global Optim. 11(4), 341–359 (1997)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Bertsimas, D., Tsitsiklis, J.: Simulated annealing. Stat. Sci. 8(1), 10–15 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Dorigo, M., Caro, G.D., Lotfi, N.: The ant colony optimizationmeta-heuristic. In: Corne, D., Dorgio, M., Glover, F., Dasgupta, D., moscato, P., Poli, R., Price, K.V. (eds.) New Ideas in Optimization, pp. 11–32. McGraw-Hill, New York (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Dueck, G.: New optimization heuristics, the great deluge algorithm and the record-to-record travel. J. Comput. Phys. 104(1), 86–92 (1993)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Chelouah, R., Siarry, P.: Tabu search applied to global optimization. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 123(2), 256–270 (2000)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  9. Naeem, M., Xue. S., Lee, D.C.: Cross-entropy optimization for sensor selection problems: communications and information technology. In: ISCIT 2009, pp. 396–401, September 2009

    Google Scholar 

  10. Sycara, K.P.: Multi-agent systems: american association for artificial intelligence. AI Mag. 19(2), 79–92 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Meignan, D., Creput, J.C., Koukam, A.: An organizational view of metaheuristics. In: Proceedings of First International Workshop on Optimization on Multi-agent Systems, pp. 77–85 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Taillard, E.D., Gambardella, L.M., Gendrau, M., Potvin, J.Y.: Adaptive memory programming: a unified view of metaheuristics. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 135, 1–16 (2001)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Cadenas, J.M., Garrido, M.C., Munoz, E.: Construction of a cooperative metaheuristic system based on data mining and soft-computing: methodological issues. In: Proceedings of IPMU 2008, pp. 1246–1253 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Aydin, M.E.: Coordinating metaheuristic agents with swarm intelligence. J. Intell. Manuf. 23(4), 991–999 (2013)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. Milano, M., Roli, A.: MAGMA: a multi-agent architecture for metaheuristics. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. B Cybern. 33(2), 925–941 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Al-Mouhamed, M.A.: Lower bound on the number of processors and time for scheduling precedence graphs with communication costs. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 16(12), 1390–1401 (1990)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  17. Wu, A.S., Yu, H., Jin, S., Lin, KCh., Schiavone, G.: An incremental genetic algorithm approach to multiprocessor scheduling. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 15(9), 824–834 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Wu, M.Y.: MCP Revisited. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. University of New Mexico (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Baxter, J., Patel, J.H.:The last algorithm: a heuristic-based static task allocation algorithm. In: Proceeding of International Conference on Parallel Processing, vol. 2, pp. 217−222 (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Coffman, E.G.: Computer and Job-Shop Scheduling Theory. Wiley, New York (1976)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Hwang, J.J., Chow, Y.C., Anger, F.D., Lee, C.Y.: Scheduling precedence graphs in systems with inter-processor communication times. SIAM J. Comput. 18(2), 244–257 (1989)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  22. Kim, S.J., Browne, J. C.: A general approach to mapping of parallel computation upon multiprocessor architectures. In: Proceeding Of International Conference on Parallel Processing, Vol. 2 pp. 1−8 (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Sarkar, V.: Partitioning and Scheduling Parallel Programs for Multiprocessors. MIT Press, Cambridge (1989)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. McCreary, C.L., Khan, A.A., Thompson, J.J., McArdle, M.E.: A comparison of heuristics for scheduling dags on multiprocessors. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Parallel Processing Symposium, pp. 446–451 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Rinehart, M., Kianzad, V., Bhattacharyya, SH.S.: A Modular Genetic Algorithm for Scheduling Task Graphs. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland, College Park (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Correa, R.C., Ferreira, A., Rebreyend, P.: Scheduling multiprocessor tasks with genetic algorithms. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 10(8), 825–837 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Parsa, S., Lotfi, S., Lotfi, N.: An evolutionary approach to task graph scheduling. In: Beliczynski, B., Dzielinski, A., Iwanowski, M., Ribeiro, B. (eds.) ICANNGA 2007. LNCS, vol. 4431, pp. 110–119. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Sih, G.C., Lee, E.A.: Scheduling to account for inter-processor communication within interconnection-constrained processor network. In: 1990 International Conference on Parallel Processing, pp. 9–17, August 1990

    Google Scholar 

  29. El-Rewini, H., Lewis, T.G.: Scheduling parallel program tasks onto arbitrary target machines. J. Parallel Distrib. Comput. 9(2), 138–153 (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Ahmad, E., Dhodhi, M.K., Ahmad, I.: Multiprocessor scheduling by simulated evolution. J. Softw. 5(10), 1128–1136 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nasser Lotfi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Lotfi, N., Acan, A. (2015). Learning-Based Multi-agent System for Solving Combinatorial Optimization Problems: A New Architecture. In: Onieva, E., Santos, I., Osaba, E., Quintián, H., Corchado, E. (eds) Hybrid Artificial Intelligent Systems. HAIS 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9121. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19644-2_27

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19644-2_27

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19643-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19644-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics