Solution of travelling salesman problem using bacterial foraging optimisation algorithm

Abstract

Travelling salesman problem (TSP) is one of the most intensively studied problems in computational mathematics. It is a standard test bed for new algorithmic ideas. A good performance of an algorithm on TSP indicates its usefulness in the field of optimisation. This paper presents a new method to solve the TSP using bacterial foraging optimisation algorithm (BFOA). The key step of BFOA used in the proposed work is computation of chemotaxis, where a bacterium takes steps over the foraging landscape in order to reach the regions with high-nutrient content. In the proposed algorithm, the movement of bacterium is decided by computing direction and distance matrix. If a bacterium does not encounter a city within the minimum distance constraint in its first step, then it searches for another city by taking another step and so on. The new approach is also analysed quantitatively with genetic algorithm based on running time of the algorithm.