Optimizing LargeScale Combinatorial Problems using MaxMin Ant System Algorithm
Aristidis Vlachos · 2012
The maintenance scheduling of thermal generators is a large/scale combinatorial optimization problem with constraints. In this paper we introduce the Max/Min Ant System based version of the Ant System. This algorithm reinforces local search in neighborhood of the best solution found in each iteration while implementing methods to slow convergence and facilitate exploration.Max/Min Ant System (MMAS) algorithm has been proved to be very effective in finding optimum solution to hard combinational optimization problems. To show its efficiency and effectiveness, the proposed Max/Min Ant System is applied to a real/ scale system, and further experimenting leads to results that are commented.