A new Hybrid Discrete Bat Algorithm for Traveling Salesman Problem using ordered crossover and 3-Opt operators for Bat's local search

In this paper we propose a new Hybrid Bat Algorithm to solve the traveling salesman problem (TSP) that has attracted many researchers applying exact and metaheuristic methods trying to solve it. The new proposed method is based on the basics of Bat Algorithm (BA) recently proposed as a new bio-inspired meta-heuristic algorithm. Accordingly, we use the concepts of Swap Operator (SO) and Swap Sequence (SS) to redefine respectively BA position and velocity operators for TSP. Additionally, based on ordered crossover and 3-Opt algorithm, we propose to redefine the Bat's local search method. We compare our algorithm to other state of the art methods from the literature by using benchmark datasets of symmetric TSP from TSPLIB library in order to test its effectiveness. Based on the recorded experiments our method outperforms most of the compared methods.