Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization Research Articles

Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm Based on Real-Time Logistics Features for Instant Delivery.

Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is widely used in the instant delivery order scheduling because of its distributed computing capability. However, the order delivery efficiency decreases when different logistics statuses are faced. In order to improve the performance of ACO, an adaptive ACO algorithm based on real-time logistics features (AACO-RTLFs) is proposed. First, features are extracted from the event dimension, spatial dimension, and time dimension of the instant delivery to describe the real-time logistics status. Five key factors are further selected from the above three features to assist in problem modeling and ACO designing. Second, an adaptive instant delivery model is built considering the customer's acceptable delivery time. The acceptable time is calculated by emergency order mark and weather conditions in the event dimension feature. Third, an adaptive ACO algorithm is proposed to obtain the instant delivery order schedules. The parameters of the probability equation in ACO are adjusted according to the extracted key factors. Finally, the Gurobi solver in Python is used to perform numerical experiments on the classical datasets to verify the effectiveness of the instant delivery model. The proposed AACO-RTLF algorithm shows its advantages in instant delivery order scheduling when compared to the other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Performance Investigation of Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization with 2-Opt Method

Performance Investigation of Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization with 2-Opt Method

Intelligent planning of fire evacuation routes in buildings based on improved adaptive ant colony algorithm

Intelligent planning of fire evacuation routes is an important guarantee for rapid emergency response. Ant colony optimization, as an intelligent bionic algorithm, has notable advantages in route planning. However, traditional ant colony optimization corresponds to a low convergence rate, is easily caught in local optimal solution, and regards route length as the only constraint. To resolve these problems, an improved adaptive ant colony optimization (IAACO) algorithm was proposed in this study. Risk, energy consumption, and route length were taken as key factors to improve the heuristic function, optimize the pheromone update function, and establish multi-objective constraints, The standards for fire evacuation better align with practical requirements. Meanwhile, the adaptive pheromone volatile coefficient was introduced to balance convergence and global searching ability. In addition, the hazard range on the grid map was visualized. The results indicate that under various complex obstacle grid maps, the path inferiority of IAACO is reduced by 61.7% and 58.4%, 43.6% and 36.7%, and 41.6% and 67.7% compared to ACO and IACO, respectively; under the condition of multiple exits, the inferiority is reduced by 63.8% and 54.6%; under the condition of multiple fire sources, the inferiority is reduced by 40.1% and 34.6%; compared with other algorithms, IAACO shows the lowest path inferiority index, 26.6. IAACO is applicable to both the dynamic planning of fire evacuation routes and the evacuation simulation software, Pathfinder, and it performs better than the built-in algorithms of Pathfinder. Facts have proved that the IAACO algorithm significantly improves the safety level of evacuation compared to traditional evacuation methods and other optimization algorithms.

Research on integration of enterprise ERP and E-commerce systems based on adaptive ant colony optimization

Integrating the E-commerce system with an enterprise resource planning tool can help the firm improve performance, maintain customers, and increase sales. In Enterprise Resource Planning, integration features can be provided either as developed features or as separate assignments and contributions. Problems with the online platform, improper addresses, rejected payments, and especially apparent transactions are frequent problems for online buyers. The enhanced Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization is utilized to optimize the rural E-commerce express of transportation. Several innovative routes can lower the downlink transportation cost and reach all collecting places with a fast delivery route. Convolutional Neural Networks were utilized to increase the collective innovation of the E-commerce platform and simplify network communication. E-commerce is a mechanism used to market information services and products. Hence, ERP-AACO-CNN has been designed to integrate Enterprise Resource Planning and E-commerce, and business operations can stream smoothly from the front to the back of the business. Statistics on sales orders, customers, stock levels, price, and essential performance measurement systems. The automated invoices, frequent communications, financial report preparation, product and service delivery, and material requirements planning. The most significant results will likely finance businesses that employ it as a stimulant for a wide-ranging process improvement. In addition, E-commerce is a valuable innovation that connects buyers and sellers in various corners of the globe. Customer satisfaction is projected to be more significant than fault detection at 95.2 % accuracy for the proposed method’s E-commerce system with the superior value. According to client demand, an E-commerce system is the most accurate development at a given input level, and a future ERP is 64.9% efficient. The proposed approach has a 24.5% random error rate and a 13.2% mean square error rate. A comparison of E-commerce and enterprise ERP precision to the proposed technique yields 83.8% better results.

Path-Planning Strategy: Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization Combined with an Enhanced Dynamic Window Approach

Aiming to resolve the problems of slow convergence speed and inability to plan in real time when ant colony optimization (ACO) performs global path planning, we propose a path-planning method that improves adaptive ant colony optimization (IAACO) with the dynamic window approach (DWA). Firstly, the heuristic information function is modified, and the adaptive adjustment factor is added to speed up the algorithm’s convergence rate; secondly, elite ants and max–min ants systems are implemented to enhance the global pheromone updating process, and an adaptive pheromone volatilization factor is aimed at preventing the algorithm from enhancing its global search capabilities; then, the path optimization and withdrawal mechanism is utilized to enable smoother functioning and to avoid the deadlocks; finally, a new distance function is introduced in the evaluation function of DWA to the enhance real-time obstacle-avoidance ability. The simulation experiment results reveal that the path length of the IAACO can be shortened by 10.1% and 13.7% in contrast to the ACO. The iteration count can be decreased by 63.3% and 63.0%, respectively, leading to an enhanced optimization performance in global path planning and achieving dynamic real-time obstacle avoidance for local path planning.

Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization with Sub-Population and Fuzzy Logic for 3D Laser Scanning Path Planning.

For the precise measurement of complex surfaces, determining the position, direction, and path of a laser sensor probe is crucial before obtaining exact measurements. Accurate surface measurement hinges on modifying the overtures of a laser sensor and planning the scan path of the point laser displacement sensor probe to optimize the alignment of its measurement velocity and accuracy. This manuscript proposes a 3D surface laser scanning path planning technique that utilizes adaptive ant colony optimization with sub-population and fuzzy logic (SFACO), which involves the consideration of the measurement point layout, probe attitude, and path planning. Firstly, this study is based on a four-coordinate measuring machine paired with a point laser displacement sensor probe. The laser scanning four-coordinate measuring instrument is used to establish a coordinate system, and the relationship between them is transformed. The readings of each axis of the object being measured under the normal measuring attitude are then reversed through the coordinate system transformation, thus resulting in the optimal measuring attitude. The nominal distance matrix, which demonstrates the significance of the optimal measuring attitude, is then created based on the readings of all the points to be measured. Subsequently, a fuzzy ACO algorithm that integrates multiple swarm adaptive and dynamic domain structures is suggested to enhance the algorithm's performance by refining and utilizing multiple swarm adaptive and fuzzy operators. The efficacy of the algorithm is verified through experiments with 13 popular TSP benchmark datasets, thereby demonstrating the complexity of the SFACO approach. Ultimately, the path planning problem of surface 3D laser scanning measurement is addressed by employing the proposed SFACO algorithm in conjunction with a nominal distance matrix.

An improved dynamic model identification method for small unmanned helicopter

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce an improved system identification method for small unmanned helicopters combining adaptive ant colony optimization algorithm and Levy’s method and to solve the problem of low model prediction accuracy caused by low-frequency domain curve fitting in the small unmanned helicopter frequency domain parameter identification method.Design/methodology/approachThis method uses the Levy method to obtain the initial parameters of the fitting model, uses the global optimization characteristics of the adaptive ant colony algorithm and the advantages of avoiding the “premature” phenomenon to optimize the initial parameters and finally obtains a small unmanned helicopter through computational optimization Kinetic models under lateral channel and longitudinal channel.FindingsThe algorithm is verified by flight test data. The verification results show that the established dynamic model has high identification accuracy and can accurately reflect the dynamic characteristics of small unmanned helicopter flight.Originality/valueThis paper presents a novel and improved frequency domain identification method for small unmanned helicopters. Compared with the conventional method, this method improves the identification accuracy and reduces the identification error.

Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization With Node Clustering for the Multidepot Vehicle Routing Problem

This article deals with the novel metaheuristic algorithm based on the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) principle. It implements several novel mechanisms that improve its overall performance, lower the optimization time, and reduce the negative behavior which is typically connected with ACO-based algorithms (such as prematurely falling into local optima, or the impact of setting of control parameters on the convergence for different problem configurations). The most significant novel techniques, implemented for the first time to solve the Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem (MDVRP), are as follows: (a) node clustering where transition vertices are organized into a set of candidate lists called clusters; (b) adaptive pheromone evaporation which is adapted during optimization according to the diversity of the population of ant solutions (measured by information entropy). Moreover, a new termination condition, based also on the population diversity, is formulated. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for the MDVRP is evaluated via a set of experiments on 23 well-known benchmark instances. Performance is compared with several state-of-the-art metaheuristic methods; the results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms these methods in most cases. Furthermore, the novel mechanisms are analyzed and discussed from points of view of performance, optimization time, and convergence. The findings achieved in this article bring new contributions to the very popular ACO-based algorithms; they can be applied to solve not only the MDVRP, but also, if adapted, to related complex NP-hard problems.

Vessel traffic scheduling optimization for passenger RoRo terminals with restricted harbor basin

Passenger Roll-on Roll-off (RoRo) shipping plays an essential role in short–distance waterway transport. An increasing number of RoRo passenger terminals adopt the layout of jetty berths in the restricted harbor basin surrounded by breakwater for the purpose of saving sea area, but ships cannot meet in the harbor basin due to inadequate water area. For the benefits of port authority, shipping company and maritime safety administration, it is an urgent problem to make a safe and efficient ship scheduling scheme in the busy RoRo passenger terminal with the restricted harbor basin. This paper formulates a multi-objective mathematical model for the integrated scheduling optimization of fairway and turning basin, with the minimum total scheduling time and total waiting time as the objective functions. Meanwhile, an adaptive ant colony optimization algorithm (AACO) is provided aimed at the proposed model, where minimizing the total waiting time is the fitness function. And the other one goal is reflected in heuristic information values, and then the selection process is affected. Numerical experiments on Xuwen terminal, the largest passenger RoRo terminal all around the world, indicate that the model has shorter total scheduling time and total waiting time compared with actual operation data. Effective solutions obtained by the proposed model and algorithm not only fundamentally increase safety and efficiency, but also improve the availability of turning basin and fairway. This study hence comes up with management insights to help port authority, shipping company and maritime safety administration.

An Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization for Solving Large-Scale Traveling Salesman Problem

The ant colony algorithm faces dimensional catastrophe problems when solving the large-scale traveling salesman problem, which leads to unsatisfactory solution quality and convergence speed. To solve this problem, an adaptive ant colony optimization for large-scale traveling salesman problem (AACO-LST) is proposed. First, AACO-LST improves the state transfer rule to make it adaptively adjust with the population evolution, thus accelerating its convergence speed; then, the 2-opt operator is used to locally optimize the part of better ant paths to further optimize the solution quality of the proposed algorithm. Finally, the constructed adaptive pheromone update rules can significantly improve the search efficiency and prevent the algorithm from falling into local optimal solutions or premature stagnation. The simulation based on 45 traveling salesman problem instances shows that AACO-LST improves the solution quality by 79% compared to the ant colony system (ACS), and in comparison with other algorithms, the PE of AACO-LST is not more than 1% and the Err is not more than 2%, which indicates that AACO-LST can find high-quality solutions with high stability. Finally, the convergence speed of the proposed algorithm was tested. The data shows that the average convergence speed of AACO-LST is more than twice that of the comparison algorithm. The relevant code can be found on our project homepage.

DAACO: adaptive dynamic quantity of ant ACO algorithm to solve the traveling salesman problem

AbstractThe traveling salesman problem (TSP) is an NP-hard problem. Thus far, a large number of researchers have proposed different ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms to solve the TSP. These algorithms inevitably encounter problems such as long convergence time and the tendency to easily fall into local optima. On the basis of the ACO algorithm, this study proposes a dynamic adaptive ACO algorithm (DAACO). DAACO realizes the diversity of initialization of the ACO algorithm by dynamically determining the number of ants to be prevented from falling into local optimization. DAACO also adopts a hybrid local selection strategy to increase the quality of ant optimization and reduce the optimization time. Among the 20 instances of the TSPLIB dataset, the DAACO algorithm obtains 19 optimal values, and the solutions of 10 instances are better than those of other algorithms. The experimental results on the TSPLIB dataset show that the DAACO algorithm has obvious advantages in terms of convergence time, solution quality, and average value relative to existing state-of-the-art ACO algorithms.

Modified adaptive ant colony optimization algorithm and its application for solving path planning of mobile robot

As the key point for auto-navigation of mobile robot, path planning is a research hotspot in the field of robot. Generally, the ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO) is one of the commonly used approaches aiming to solve the problem of path planning of mobile robot. Nevertheless, the traditional ACO has the shortcomings such as slow convergence speed, inefficiency and easily fall into local optimal values. Thus, a novel variant of ACO is proposed in this study. In detail, a new heuristic mechanism with orientation information is firstly introduced to add direction guidance during the iteration process, further to advance the convergence speed of algorithm. Secondly, an improved heuristic function is presented to enhance the purposiveness and reduce the number of turn times of planned path. Then, an improved state transition probability rule is introduced to improve the search efficiency significantly and increase the swarm diversity. Moreover, a new method for unevenly distributing initial pheromone concentration is proposed to avoid blind searching. After integrating the four improvements, the new variation of ACO called modified adaptive ant colony optimization algorithm (MAACO) is formed. Subsequently, parameter optimization of MAACO is carried out. For verifying the effectiveness of the proposed MAACO, a series of experiments are conducted based on five static space environment modes and one dynamic environment mode. Comparing with 13 existing approaches for solving the problem of path planning of mobile robot, including several variants of ACO and two commonly used algorithms (A* algorithm and Dijkstra algorithm), the experimental results demonstrate the merits of MAACO in terms of decreasing the path length, reducing the number of turn times, and promoting the convergence speed. In detail, in all the static simulation experiments, the proposed MAACO generates the shortest path length with a standard deviation of zero, and achieves the least number of turn times within the smallest convergence generation. In terms of the five experiments, the average number of reducing turn times is two with a generally reduction ratio of 22.2% compared with the best existing results. The obtained results of MAACO prove its practicality and high-efficiency for path planning.

Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization with Node Clustering for the Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem

Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization with Node Clustering for the Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem

MCEAACO-QSRP: A Novel QoS-Secure Routing Protocol for Industrial Internet of Things

With the widespread application of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the requirements for sensing equipment to collect data and information continue to increase, and industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs) with industrial information perception capabilities have emerged as the times require. The data stream transmission of important value information requires the network to provide safe and reliable service quality assurance. Therefore, it is imperative to meet the requirements of end-to-end delay and reliable service between nodes and solve the problems of high energy consumption and poor security of the existing Quality-of-Service (QoS) routing protocols. To this end, considering the QoS constraints of end-to-end delay, security, and energy consumption, a multiobjective secure routing model based on trust awareness is designed. Subsequently, using the advantages of the proposed model, a novel QoS-secure routing algorithm based on multiobjective chaotic elite adaptive ant colony optimization (ACO) (i.e., MCEAACO-QSRP) is proposed. Specifically, a chaotic optimization strategy is designed to initialize the population, which increases the diversity of the population and enhances the ability of the algorithm to jump out of the local optimal. In addition, the adaptive optimization strategy is designed to dynamically adjust the algorithm trend, which effectively improves the algorithm convergence speed. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated in different scale scenarios. The simulation results show that compared with other state-of-the-art QoS routing solutions, the proposed MCEAACO-QSRP has obvious advantages, which can effectively improve routing security, reduce network energy consumption, and satisfy multi-QoS constrains for the end-to-end delay and reliable service.

The Optimization of Path Planning for Express Delivery Based on Clone Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization

In recent years, China's express delivery market has developed rapidly in the context of a booming economy. However, logistics costs are still high, which will affect the decision-making and policy making of relevant departments. Therefore, it is essential to optimize the last-mile assignment problem (LMAP) to meet the consumer’s demand for delivery time and reduce economic expenditure. The LMAP of express delivery requires multiple packages to be delivered to different destinations. Finding the path with the minimum delivery cost and time is an NP-hard problem, and it is impossible to obtain the optimal solution by enumerating all possible answers. This study proposes a new express delivery path planning method based on a clone adaptive ant colony optimization (CAACO) to find suboptimal solutions. Moreover, a new distribution cost fitness function constructed by weighing the economic expenditure and time of express delivery is designed. Specifically, a new adaptive operator and a novel clone operator are also designed to accelerate the speed of convergence. Finally, by comparing the performance of CAACO with ant colony optimization (ACO), simulated annealing (SA), and genetic algorithm (GA), the effectiveness of CAACO in solving the express LAMP is verified. In the simulation results, it is obvious that the economic expenditure and time of express delivery based on the CAACO are lower than ACO, SA, and GA, and the convergence speed is also faster than the SA and GA. It can be seen that CAACO has valuable benefits in solving LMAP.

Trajectory Generation and Optimization Using the Mutual Learning and Adaptive Ant Colony Algorithm in Uneven Environments

Aiming at the trajectory generation and optimization of mobile robots in complex and uneven environments, a hybrid scheme using mutual learning and adaptive ant colony optimization (MuL-ACO) is proposed in this paper. In order to describe the uneven environment with various obstacles, a 2D-H map is introduced in this paper. Then an adaptive ant colony algorithm based on simulated annealing (SA) is proposed to generate initial trajectories of mobile robots, where based on a de-temperature function of the simulated annealing algorithm, the pheromone volatilization factor is adaptively adjusted to accelerate the convergence of the algorithm. Moreover, the length factor, height factor, and smooth factor are considered in the comprehensive heuristic function of ACO to adapt to uneven environments. Finally, a mutual learning algorithm is designed to further smooth and shorten initial trajectories, in which different trajectory node sequences learn from each other to acquire the shortest trajectory sequence to optimize the trajectory. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, MuL-ACO is compared with several well-known and novel algorithms in terms of running time, trajectory length, height, and smoothness. The experimental results show that MuL-ACO can generate a collision-free trajectory with a high comprehensive quality in uneven environments.

Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization with node clustering applied to the Travelling Salesman Problem

This article presents the Ant Colony Optimization algorithm to solve the Travelling Salesman Problem. The proposed algorithm implements three novel techniques to enhance the overall performance, lower the execution time and reduce the negative effects particularly connected with ACO-based methods such as falling into a local optimum and issues with settings of control parameters for different instances. These techniques include (a) the node clustering concept where transition nodes are organised in a set of clusters, (b) adaptive pheromone evaporation controlled dynamically based on the information entropy and (c) the formulation of the new termination condition based on the diversity of solutions in population. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed principles, a number of experiments were conducted using 30 benchmark instances (ranging from 51 to 2,392 nodes with various nodes topologies) taken from the well-known TSPLIB benchmarks and the results are compared with several state-of-the-art ACO-based methods; the proposed algorithm outperforms these rival methods in most cases. The impact of the novel techniques on the behaviour of the algorithm is thoroughly analysed and discussed in respect to the overall performance, execution time and convergence.

Improved dynamic adaptive ant colony optimization algorithm to solve pipe routing design

With the purpose of finding a satisfactory pipe path between the starting point and target point, pipe routing design (PRD) has been applied in many industry fields. The research of two-dimensional PRD is the foundation of solving complex RPD problems, and has widely applications in factory layout, facilities installation, and so on. The ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is one of the most widely used approaches to solve PRD. However, the traditional ACO has drawbacks such as slow convergence speed, easy to fall into local optimum and low efficiency. In this study, an improved dynamic adaptive ACO (IDAACO) is proposed. The IDAACO includes four novel mechanisms which are the heuristic strategy with direction information, adaptive pseudorandom transfer strategy, improved local pheromone updating mechanism and improved global pheromone updating mechanism. Then, a series of experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the four proposed mechanisms included by IDAACO. Subsequently, the IDAACO is compared with several existing approaches for solving PRD, and the experimental results confirm the advantages of IDAACO in terms of the practicality and high-efficiency. Finally, the IDAACO is used to solve the PRD problem for semi-submersible production platform in oil and gas industry.

Machining Path Optimization of 3C Locking Robots Using Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization

The motion smoothness of 3C locking robot directly affects the machining performance. Improving the motion smoothness can optimize the motion trajectory and reduce the processing time. In this paper, a novel machining path optimization model including motion smoothness is built by employing the coordinate boundary of velocity and acceleration after evaluating the machining motion smoothness of the 3C locking robot. Secondly, based on the creation of the ant colony of adaptive function algorithm, the optimization model of the 3C locking robot in the situation of fixed bolt hole position and floating bolt hole position is resolved. Lastly, the proposed approach collects and analyses a huge amount of data to enable robots to make on-the-fly decisions in the middle of production, even when faced with unexpected circumstances. In the Spark distributed environment, we use the conventional K clustering technique to improve the final output utilizing clustering means. The results show that the machining path optimization of fixed hole considering the motion smoothness improves the smoothness but extends the machining path; the cooperative machining path optimization of multiregion floating bolt holes can significantly improve the motion smoothness and effectively reduce the length of the path. The research results provide theoretical support and design guidance for designers.

Adaptive cooperative ant colony optimization algorithm based on reinforcement incentive and its application

Ant colony algorithm has great advantages in solving some NP complete problems, but it also has some problems such as slow search speed, low convergence accuracy and easy to fall into local optimum. In order to balance the contradiction between the convergence accuracy and the convergence speed of ant colony algorithm, this paper first proposes an ant colony algorithm (RIACO) based on the reinforcement excitation theory of Burrus Frederic Skinner. In this algorithm, pheromone is stimulated and its volatilization coefficient is adjusted adaptively according to the iteration times, thus the speed of ant colony search is accelerated. Secondly, based on the characteristics of real ant colony classification and division of labor, this paper proposes an ant colony algorithm based on labor division and cooperation (LCACO). The algorithm divides the ant colony into two different types of ant colony for information exchange and improves the state transition probability formula, so that the two ant colonies can search the optimal path cooperatively, so as to improve the precision of ant colony search. Finally, combining the two improved ant colony algorithms, this paper proposes an adaptive cooperative ant colony optimization algorithm based on reinforcement incentive (SMCAACO). A multi constrained vehicle routing problem (MCVRP) is compared with the classical tabu search algorithm (TS), variable neighborhood search algorithm (VNS) and basic ant colony algorithm (ACO). The experimental results show that, in solving the mcvrp problem, the algorithm proposed in this paper not only has a good performance in the solution results, but also achieves a good balance between the convergence speed and the convergence accuracy.