The Ant System: Optimization by a colony of cooperating agents

DMCA

The Ant System: Optimization by a colony of cooperating agents (1996)

Cached

Download Links

by Marco Dorigo , Vittorio Maniezzo , Alberto Colorni

Venue:	IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS-PART B
Citations:	1290 - 45 self

BibTeX

@ARTICLE{Dorigo96theant,
    author = {Marco Dorigo and Vittorio Maniezzo and Alberto Colorni},
    title = {The Ant System: Optimization by a colony of cooperating agents},
    journal = {IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS-PART B},
    year = {1996},
    volume = {26},
    number = {1},
    pages = {29--41}
}

OpenURL

Abstract

An analogy with the way ant colonies function has suggested the definition of a new computational paradigm, which we call Ant System. We propose it as a viable new approach to stochastic combinatorial optimization. The main characteristics of this model are positive feedback, distributed computation, and the use of a constructive greedy heuristic. Positive feedback accounts for rapid discovery of good solutions, distributed computation avoids premature convergence, and the greedy heuristic helps find acceptable solutions in the early stages of the search process. We apply the proposed methodology to the classical Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), and report simulation results. We also discuss parameter selection and the early setups of the model, and compare it with tabu search and simulated annealing using TSP. To demonstrate the robustness of the approach, we show how the Ant System (AS) can be applied to other optimization problems like the asymmetric traveling salesman, the quadrat...

Keyphrases

ant system classical traveling salesman problem computation avoids premature convergence positive feedback viable new approach acceptable solution positive feedback account early setup main characteristic early stage search process optimization problem stochastic combinatorial optimization new computational paradigm rapid discovery constructive greedy heuristic report simulation result good solution parameter selection tabu search way ant colony function

DMCA