Otimização discreta por nuvem de partículas aplicada ao problema do caixeiro viajante

Abstract

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a metaheuristic that originated from the intention to simulate the behavior of a flock of birds in locally random, but globally determined movement. This technique has been widely used in the resolution of non-linear continuous problems and is still not explored enough for the resolution of discrete problems. This paper presents the performance of this metaheuristic with new adaptations for its application to discrete optimization problems. Results of computational experiments are presented for some instances of the travelling salesman problem chosen in the TSPLIB, to demonstrate the efficiency of the adapted method in the resolution of problems of this category. Keywords: Particle Swarm Optimization; Global Optimization; Combinatorial Optimization.