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Improved cooperative Ant Colony Optimization for the solution of binary combinatorial optimization applications
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  • Roberto Prado-Rodríguez,
  • Patricia González,
  • Julio R. Banga,
  • Ramón Doallo
Roberto Prado-Rodríguez
Universidade da Coruna

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Patricia González
Universidade da Coruna
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Julio R. Banga
Fundacion General CSIC
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Ramón Doallo
Universidade da Coruna
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Abstract

Binary combinatorial optimization plays a crucial role in various scientific and engineering fields. While deterministic approaches have traditionally been used to solve these problems, stochastic methods, particularly metaheuristics, have gained popularity in recent years for efficiently handling large problem instances. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is among the most successful metaheuristics and is frequently employed in non-binary combinatorial problems due to its adaptability. Although for binary combinatorial problems ACO can suffer from issues such as rapid convergence to local minima, its eminently parallel structure means that it can be exploited to solve large and complex problems also in this field. In order to provide a versatile ACO implementation that achieves competitive results across a wide array of binary combinatorial optimization problems, we introduce a parallel multicolony strategy with an improved cooperation scheme to maintain search diversity. We evaluate our proposal (Binary Parallel Cooperative ACO, BiPCACO) using a comprehensive benchmark framework, showcasing its performance and, most importantly, its flexibility as a successful all-purpose solver for binary combinatorial problems.
31 May 2023Submitted to Expert Systems
01 Jun 2023Submission Checks Completed
01 Jun 2023Assigned to Editor
20 Jun 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
25 Jul 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
08 Aug 2023Editorial Decision: Revise Major
29 Aug 20231st Revision Received
31 Aug 2023Submission Checks Completed
31 Aug 2023Assigned to Editor
07 Sep 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
24 Oct 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
29 Oct 2023Editorial Decision: Revise Major
03 Nov 20232nd Revision Received
06 Nov 2023Submission Checks Completed
06 Nov 2023Assigned to Editor
06 Nov 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned