Abstract
In this work, we adopt the concept of backtracking from the Nested Partition (NP) algorithm and apply it to the Max-Min Ant System (MMAS) to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). A new type of ants that is called backtracking ants (BA) is used to challenge a subset of the solution feasible space that is expected to have the global optimum solution. The size of this subset is decreased if the BAs find a better solution out of this subset or increased if the BAs fail in their challenge. The BAs don’t have to generate full tours like previous ant systems, which leads to a considerable reduction in the computation effort. A computational experiment is conducted to check the validity of the proposed algorithm.
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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Al-Shihabi, S. (2004). Backtracking Ant System for the Traveling Salesman Problem. In: Dorigo, M., Birattari, M., Blum, C., Gambardella, L.M., Mondada, F., Stützle, T. (eds) Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence. ANTS 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3172. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-28646-2_30
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-28646-2_30
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