A new approach for solving large traveling salesman problem using evolutionary ant rules

Abstract

This paper presents a new metaheuristic method called EA algorithm for solving the TSP (traveling salesman problem). We introduce a genetic exploitation mechanism in ant colony system from genetic algorithm to search solutions space for solving the traveling salesman problem. In addition, we present a method called nearest neighbor (NN) to EA to improve TSPs thus obtain good solutions quickly. According to our simulation results, the EA algorithm outperforms the ant colony system (ACS) in tour length comparison of traveling salesman problem. In this work it is observed that EA or ACS with NN approach as initial solutions can provide a significant improvement for obtaining a global optimum solution or a near global optimum solution in large TSPs.