Parallel Ant Colony Optimization Research Articles

A novel parallel ant colony optimization algorithm for mobile robot path planning.

With the continuous development of mobile robot technology, its application fields are becoming increasingly widespread, and path planning is one of the most important topics in the field of mobile robot research. This paper focused on the study of the path planning problem for mobile robots in a complex environment based on the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm. In order to solve the problems of local optimum, susceptibility to deadlocks, and low search efficiency in the traditional ACO algorithm, a novel parallel ACO (PACO) algorithm was proposed. The algorithm constructed a rank-based pheromone updating method to balance exploration space and convergence speed and introduced a hybrid strategy of continuing to work and killing directly to address the problem of deadlocks. Furthermore, in order to efficiently realize the path planning in complex environments, the algorithm first found a better location for decomposing the original problem into two subproblems and then solved them using a parallel programming method-single program multiple data (SPMD)-in MATLAB. In different grid map environments, simulation experiments were carried out. The experimental results showed that on grid maps with scales of 20 $ \times $ 20, 30 $ \times $ 30, and 40 $ \times $ 40 compared to nonparallel ACO algorithms, the proposed PACO algorithm had less loss of solution accuracy but reduced the average total time by 50.71, 46.83 and 46.03%, respectively, demonstrating good solution performance.

A Fast Fully Parallel Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm Based on CUDA for Solving TSP

In view of the known problems of parameter sensitivity, local optimum, and slow convergence in the ant colony optimization (ACO), we aim to improve the performance of the ACO. To solve the traveling salesman problem (TSP) quickly with accurate results, we propose a fully parallel ACO (FP-ACO). Based on the max–min ant system (MMAS), we initiate a compensation mechanism for pheromone to constrain its value, guarantee the correctness of results and avoid a local optimum, and further enhance the convergence ability of ACO. Moreover, based on the compute unified device architecture (CUDA), the ACO is implemented as a kernel function on a graphics processing unit (GPU), which shortens the running time of massive iterations. Combined with the roulette wheel selection mechanism, FP-ACO has powerful search capabilities and is committed to obtaining better solutions. The experimental results show that, compared with the effective strategies ACO (ESACO) that runs on CPU, the speed-up ratio of the proposed algorithm reaches 35, and the running time is less than that of the max–min ant system-roulette wheel method-bitmask tabu (MMAS-RWM-BT) that runs on GPU. Furthermore, our algorithm outperforms the other two algorithms in the speed-up ratio and less runtime, proving that the proposed FP-ACO is more suitable for solving TSP.

Hybrid Parallel Ant Colony Optimization for Application to Quantum Computing to Solve Large-Scale Combinatorial Optimization Problems

Quantum computing is a promising technology that may provide breakthrough solutions to today’s difficult problems such as breaking encryption and solving large-scale combinatorial optimization problems. An algorithm referred to as Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) has been recently proposed to approximately solve hard problems using a protocol know as bang–bang. The technique is based on unitary evolution using a Hamiltonian encoding of the objective function of the combinatorial optimization problem. The QAOA was explored in the context of several optimization problems such as the Max-Cut problem and the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Due to the relatively small node-size solution capability of the available quantum computers and simulators, we developed a hybrid approach where sub-graphs of a TSP tour can be executed on a quantum computer, and the results from the quantum optimization are combined for a further optimization of the whole tour. Since the local optimization of a sub-graph is prone to becoming trapped in a local minimum, we overcame this problem by using a parallel Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm with periodic pheromone exchange between colonies. Our method exceeds existing approaches which have attempted partitioning a graph for small problems (less than 48 nodes) with sub-optimal results. We obtained optimum results for benchmarks with less than 150 nodes and results usually within 1% of the known optimal solution for benchmarks with around 2000 nodes.

Learning Causal Biological Networks with Parallel Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm.

A wealth of causal relationships exists in biological systems, both causal brain networks and causal protein signaling networks are very classical causal biological networks (CBNs). Learning CBNs from biological signal data reliably is a critical problem today. However, most of the existing methods are not excellent enough in terms of accuracy and time performance, and tend to fall into local optima because they do not take full advantage of global information. In this paper, we propose a parallel ant colony optimization algorithm to learn causal biological networks from biological signal data, called PACO. Specifically, PACO first maps the construction of CBNs to ants, then searches for CBNs in parallel by simulating multiple groups of ants foraging, and finally obtains the optimal CBN through pheromone fusion and CBNs fusion between different ant colonies. Extensive experimental results on simulation data sets as well as two real-world data sets, the fMRI signal data set and the Single-cell data set, show that PACO can accurately and efficiently learn CBNs from biological signal data.

Research on Grid Planning of Dual Power Distribution Network Based on Parallel Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm

A distribution network plays an extremely important role in the safe and efficient operation of a power grid. As the core part of a power grid’s operation, a distribution network will have a significant impact on the safety and reliability of residential electricity consumption. it is necessary to actively plan and modify the distribution network’s structure in the power grid, improve the quality of the distribution network, and optimize the planning of the distribution network, so that the network can be fully utilized to meet the needs of electricity consumption. In this paper, a distribution network grid planning algorithm based on the reliability of electricity consumption was completed using ant colony algorithm. For the distribution network structure planning of dual power sources, the parallel ant colony algorithm was used to prove that the premise of parallelism is the interactive process of ant colonies, and the dual power distribution network structure model is established based on the principle of the lowest cost. The artificial ants in the algorithm were compared with real ants in nature, and the basic steps and working principle of the ant colony optimization algorithm was studied with the help of the travelling salesman problem (TSP). Then, the limitations of the ant colony algorithm were analyzed, and an improvement strategy was proposed by using python for digital simulation. The results demonstrated the reliability of model-building and algorithm improvement.

Parallel Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for Finding the Shortest Path for Mountain Climbing

The problem of finding the shortest path between two nodes is a common problem that requires a solution in many applications like games, robotics, and real-life problems. Since its deals with a large number of possibilities. Therefore, parallel algorithms are suitable to solve this optimization problem that has attracted a lot of researchers from both industry and academia to find the optimal path in terms of runtime, speedup, efficiency, and cost compared to sequential algorithms. In mountain climbing, finding the shortest path from the start node under the mountain to reach the destination node is a fundamental operator, and there are some interesting issues to be studied in mountain climbing that cannot be found in a traditional two-dimensional space search. We present a parallel Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) to find the shortest path in the mountain climbing problem using Apache Spark. The proposed algorithm guarantees the security of the selected path by applying some constraints that take into account the secure slope angle for the path. A generated dataset with variable sizes is used to evaluate the proposed algorithm in terms of runtime, speedup, efficiency, and cost. The experimental results show that the parallel ACO algorithm significantly <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(p &lt; 0.05)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> outperformed the best sequential ACO. On the other hand, the parallel ACO algorithm is compared with one of the most recent research from the literature for finding the best path for mountain climbing problems using the parallel A* algorithm with Apache Spark. The parallel ACO algorithm with Spark significantly outperformed the parallel A* algorithm.

A parallel hybrid PSO-GA algorithm for the flexible flow-shop scheduling with transportation

In this paper, a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to simultaneously schedule jobs and transporters in a flexible flow shop system is suggested. Wherein multiple jobs, finite transporters, and stages with parallel unrelated machines are considered. In addition to the mentioned technicalities, the jobs are able to omit one or more stages, and may not be executable by all the machines, and similarly, transportable by all the transporters. To the best of our knowledge, no study in the literature has featured efficacy of the parallel computing in simultaneous scheduling of jobs and transporters in the flexible flow shop system which remarkably shortens run time if the solution approaches are designed accordingly. To this end, we employ Gurobi solver, Parallel Genetic Algorithm (PGA), Parallel Particle Swarm Optimization (PPSO) and hybrid Parallel PSO-GA Algorithm (PPSOGA) to deal with the problem instances. Furthermore, a parallel version of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm adapted from the state-of-the-art literature is developed to verify the performance of our suggested solution methods. Using 60 problem instances generated via uniform distribution, the suggested solution approaches are compared against one another. After assessing the results of the computational experiments, it is deduced that PPSOGA algorithm outperforms PGA, PPSO, Parallel Ant Colony Optimization (PACO) and Gurobi solver in terms of the quality of the solutions. The efficiency and run time of the suggested approaches are then assessed through two prominent statistical tests (i.e., Wald and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)). Eventually, it comes to spotlight that PPSOGA algorithm is computationally rewarding and dependable.

Parallel ant colony optimization for the training of cell signaling networks

Acquiring a functional comprehension of the deregulation of cell signaling networks in disease allows progress in the development of new therapies and drugs. Computational models are becoming increasingly popular as a systematic tool to analyze the functioning of complex biochemical networks, such as those involved in cell signaling. CellNOpt is a framework to build predictive logic-based models of signaling pathways by training a prior knowledge network to biochemical data obtained from perturbation experiments. This training can be formulated as an optimization problem that can be solved using metaheuristics. However, the genetic algorithm used so far in CellNOpt presents limitations in terms of execution time and quality of solutions when applied to large instances. Thus, in order to overcome those issues, in this paper we propose the use of a method based on ant colony optimization, adapted to the problem at hand and parallelized using a hybrid approach. The performance of this novel method is illustrated with several challenging benchmark problems in the study of new therapies for liver cancer.

Effective route generation framework using quantum mechanism-based multi-directional and parallel ant colony optimization

Path planning in a complex network is a traditional and important research area in the optimization and machine learning fields. Several metaheuristics have been proposed; however, they are limited by the number of iterations, limited resources, and computation times. Therefore, in this study, the above issue is solved by integrating the existing metaheuristic algorithm with a prediction method. As a metaheuristic algorithm, ant colony optimization (ACO) is modified and applied. Instead of modeling ants pursuing higher pheromone densities, the proposed framework predicts pheromone traits using the intermediate pheromone density. As the pheromone volumes in the intermediate stage fluctuate, they are modeled using a quantum mechanism. Thereafter, the following pheromone traits are estimated using the modeled stochastic differential equation and Ito integral. The predicted pheromones are used for the parameters in the subsequent ACO iterations. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, the shortest path generation in several large-scale networks is provided. The proposed framework is considered a highly efficient metaheuristic framework with the integration of quantum mechanism-based prediction and existing metaheuristics.

Effective train routing selection for real-time traffic management: Improved model and ACO parallel computing

The real-time Railway Traffic Management Problem (rtRTMP) is the problem of detecting and solving time-overlapping conflicting requests made by multiple trains on the same track resources. This problem consists in retiming, reordering and rerouting trains in such a way that the propagation of disturbances in the railway network is minimized. The rtRTMP is an NP-complete problem and finding good strategies to simplify its solution process is paramount to obtain good quality results in a short computation time. Solving the Train Routing Selection Problem (TRSP) aims to reduce the size of rtRTMP instances by limiting the number of routing variables: during the pre-processing, the most promising routing alternatives among the available ones are selected for each train. Then, the selected alternatives are the only ones used for the rtRTMP. A first version of the TRSP has been recently proposed in the literature. This paper presents an improved TRSP model, where rolling stock re-utilization timing constraints and estimation of train delay propagation are taken into account. Additionally, a parallel Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm is proposed. We analyze the impact of the TRSP model and algorithm on the rtRTMP through a thorough computational campaign performed on a French case study with timetable disturbances and infrastructure disruptions. The presented model leads to a better correlation between TRSP and rtRTMP solutions, and the proposed ACO algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithm.

Fuzzy Based Ant Colony Optimization Scheduling in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is an Information Technology deployment model established on virtualization. Task scheduling states the set of rules for task allocations to an exact virtual machine in the cloud computing environment. However, task scheduling challenges such as optimal task scheduling performance solutions, are addressed in cloud computing. First, the cloud computing performance due to task scheduling is improved by proposing a Dynamic Weighted Round-Robin algorithm. This recommended DWRR algorithm improves the task scheduling performance by considering resource competencies, task priorities, and length. Second, a heuristic algorithm called Hybrid Particle Swarm Parallel Ant Colony Optimization is proposed to solve the task execution delay problem in DWRR based task scheduling. In the end, a fuzzy logic system is designed for HPSPACO that expands task scheduling in the cloud environment. A fuzzy method is proposed for the inertia weight update of the PSO and pheromone trails update of the PACO. Thus, the proposed Fuzzy Hybrid Particle Swarm Parallel Ant Colony Optimization on cloud computing achieves improved task scheduling by minimizing the execution and waiting time, system throughput, and maximizing resource utilization.

PACO-VMP: Parallel Ant Colony Optimization for Virtual Machine Placement

The Virtual Machine Placement (VMP) problem is a challenging optimization task that involves the assignment of virtual machines to physical machines in a cloud computing environment. The placement of virtual machines can significantly affect the use of resources in a cluster, with a subsequent impact on operational costs and the environment. In this paper, we present an improved algorithm for VMP, based on Parallel Ant Colony Optimization (PACO), which makes effective use of parallelization techniques and modern processor technologies. We achieve solution qualities that are comparable with or superior to those obtained by other nature-inspired methods, with our parallel implementation obtaining a speed-up of up to 2002x over recent serial algorithms in the literature. This allows us to rapidly find high-quality solutions that are close to the theoretical minimum number of Virtual Machines.

An efficient ant colony optimization framework for HPC environments

Combinatorial optimization problems arise in many disciplines, both in the basic sciences and in applied fields such as engineering and economics. One of the most popular combinatorial optimization methods is the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) metaheuristic. Its parallel nature makes it especially attractive for implementation and execution in High Performance Computing (HPC) environments. Here we present a novel parallel ACO strategy making use of efficient asynchronous decentralized cooperative mechanisms. This strategy seeks to fulfill two objectives: (i) acceleration of the computations by performing the ants’ solution construction in parallel; (ii) convergence improvement through the stimulation of the diversification in the search and the cooperation between different colonies. The two main features of the proposal, decentralization and desynchronization, enable a more effective and efficient response in environments where resources are highly coupled. Examples of such infrastructures include both traditional HPC clusters, and also new distributed environments, such as cloud infrastructures, or even local computer networks. The proposal has been evaluated using the popular Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), as a well-known NP-hard problem widely used in the literature to test combinatorial optimization methods. An exhaustive evaluation has been carried out using three medium and large size instances from the TSPLIB library, and the experiments show encouraging results with superlinear speedups compared to the sequential algorithm (e.g. speedups of 18 with 16 cores), and a very good scalability (experiments were performed with up to 384 cores improving execution time even at that scale).

High-Level Parallel Ant Colony Optimization with Algorithmic Skeletons

Parallel implementations of swarm intelligence algorithms such as the ant colony optimization (ACO) have been widely used to shorten the execution time when solving complex optimization problems. When aiming for a GPU environment, developing efficient parallel versions of such algorithms using CUDA can be a difficult and error-prone task even for experienced programmers. To overcome this issue, the parallel programming model of Algorithmic Skeletons simplifies parallel programs by abstracting from low-level features. This is realized by defining common programming patterns (e.g. map, fold and zip) that later on will be converted to efficient parallel code. In this paper, we show how algorithmic skeletons formulated in the domain specific language Musket can cope with the development of a parallel implementation of ACO and how that compares to a low-level implementation. Our experimental results show that Musket suits the development of ACO. Besides making it easier for the programmer to deal with the parallelization aspects, Musket generates high performance code with similar execution times when compared to low-level implementations.

A new approach for solving the flow‐shop scheduling problem using a parallel optimization algorithm

In any organization and business, efficient scheduling cause increased efficiency, reducing the time required to complete jobs and increasing an organization’s profitability in a competitive environment. Also, the flow-shop scheduling problem is a vital type of scheduling problem with many real-world applications. Flow-shop scheduling has numerous exciting applications in various manufacturing and industrial domains. During the past eras, the growing interests in the arrangement of flow shops with diverse objective functions (for example, minimizing the makespan and flow-time) were observed. The permutation flow-shop is formulated as mixed-integer programming, and it is an NP-Hard problem. Therefore, in this paper, a novel method is provided to decrease the makespan and completion time. Since parallel algorithms use some computing elements to accelerate the search and present a new exploration pattern that is frequently suitable to enhance the quality of the results, in this research, a parallel ant colony optimization algorithm is employed to solve the mentioned problem. The Matlab simulation setting in Net Beans IDE 8.0.2 and Java to simulate the introduced method is applied. According to the obtained results, the suggested procedure has more efficiency than the previous methods. The Matlab simulator outcomes have indicated that the average response time has been improved compared to the PSO-SA and HBC algorithms. Also, the makespan is improved in comparison to GA and MOACSA.

A Novel Bearing Fault Diagnosis Method Using Spark-Based Parallel ACO-K-Means Clustering Algorithm

K-Means clustering algorithm is a typical unsupervised learning method, and it has been widely used in the field of fault diagnosis. However, the traditional serial K-Means clustering algorithm is difficult to efficiently and accurately perform clustering analysis on the massive running-state monitoring data of rolling bearing. Therefore, a novel fault diagnosis method of rolling bearing using Spark-based parallel ant colony optimization (ACO)-K-Means clustering algorithm is proposed. Firstly, a Spark-based three-layer wavelet packet decomposition approach is developed to efficiently preprocess the running-state monitoring data to obtain eigenvectors, which are stored in Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and served as the input of ACO-K-Means clustering algorithm. Secondly, ACO-K-Means clustering algorithm suitable for rolling bearing fault diagnosis is proposed to improve the diagnosis accuracy. ACO algorithm is adopted to obtain the global optimal initial clustering centers of K-Means from all eigenvectors, and the K-Means clustering algorithm based on weighted Euclidean distance is used to perform clustering analysis on all eigenvectors to obtain a rolling bearing fault diagnosis model. Thirdly, the efficient parallelization of ACO-K-Means clustering algorithm is implemented on a Spark platform, which can make full use of the computing resources of a cluster to efficiently process large-scale rolling bearing datasets in parallel. Extensive experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed fault diagnosis method. Experimental results show that the proposed method can not only achieve good fault diagnosis accuracy but also provide high model training efficiency and fault diagnosis efficiency in a big data environment.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PARALLEL ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM BASED ON THE TRAVELING SALESMAN PROBLEM

The purpose of this study is to develop software to conduct research on the effectiveness of the parallel ant colony optimization algorithm applied to the shortest-path search. The algorithm is based on the behavior principles of an ant colony as well as individual ants, who search the shortest path to the food source. In order to study the effectiveness of the ant colony optimization algorithm one of the most common optimization problems was applied, specifically – a travelling salesman problem. The algorithm shows its efficiency and stability only on the sufficient amount of resources. Its resource usage and therefore the working time grows rapidly together with the growth of the size of the task. In order to solve this problem the parallelism is applied. It is also вused to reduce the premature convergence to the local optimum, as well as to stimulate diversity and search of the alternative solutions of the same problem. In the proposed software each independent ant colony is developed on the separate computer core. Each colony exchanges the best individuals with other colonies in a certain number of generations. The topology of this interaction has the form of «each with each». According to the calculations, we can conclude, that the efficiency of the ant colony optimization algorithm does not change with the increase in the number of kernels (individual populations). However, there is a slight change of the reliability of the particular settings. But at the same time we can observe the substantial increase in operation speed. Thus, the parallelization of the ant colony optimization algorithm can significantly reduce the execution time of a software application without compromising reliability. The ant algorithm is used to solve complex optimization problems. Typical areas of the algorithm application include scheduling, resource and job allocation, transport routing, etc. For this reason, the problem of increasing the efficiency of the algorithm calculations is quite topical.

FUZZY BASED ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION SCHEDULING IN CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud computing is an Information Technology deployment model established on virtualization. Task scheduling states the set of rules for task allocations to an exact virtual machine in the cloud computing environment. However, task scheduling challenges such as optimal task scheduling performance solutions, are addressed in cloud computing. First, the cloud computing performance due to task scheduling is improved by proposing a Dynamic Weighted Round-Robin algorithm. This recommended DWRR algorithm improves the task scheduling performance by considering resource competencies, task priorities, and length. Second, a heuristic algorithm called Hybrid Particle Swarm Parallel Ant Colony Optimization is proposed to solve the task execution delay problem in DWRR based task scheduling. In the end, a fuzzy logic system is designed for HPSPACO that expands task scheduling in the cloud environment. A fuzzy method is proposed for the inertia weight update of the PSO and pheromone trails update of the PACO. Thus, the proposed Fuzzy Hybrid Particle Swarm Parallel Ant Colony Optimization on cloud computing achieves improved task scheduling by minimizing the execution and waiting time, system throughput, and maximizing resource utilization.

A Novel Parallel Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for Warehouse Path Planning

In order to improve the working efficiency of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and the processing efficiency of fulfilling orders in intelligent warehouses, a novel parallel ant colony optimization algorithm for warehouse path planning is proposed. Through the interaction of pheromones among multiple subcolonies, the coevolution of multiple subcolonies is realized and the operational capability of the algorithm is improved. Then, a multiobjective function with the object of the shortest path and the minimum number of turns of the AGV is established. And the path satisfying this objective function is obtained by the proposed algorithm. In addition, the path is further smoothed by reducing the number of intermediate nodes. The results show that the stability and convergence rate of the algorithm are faster and more stable, compared to other algorithms, in generating paths for different complexity maps. The smoothing treatment of the path significantly reduces the number of turns and the path length in the AGV driving process.

Accelerating supply chains with Ant Colony Optimization across a range of hardware solutions

Ant Colony algorithm has been applied to various optimisation problems, however, most of the previous work on scaling and parallelism focuses on Travelling Salesman Problems (TSPs). Although useful for benchmarks and new idea comparison, the algorithmic dynamics do not always transfer to complex real-life problems, where additional meta-data is required during solution construction. This paper explores how the benchmark performance differs from real-world problems in the context of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and demonstrate that in order to generalise the findings, the algorithms have to be tested on both standard benchmarks and real-world applications. ACO and its scaling dynamics with two parallel ACO architectures – Independent Ant Colonies (IAC) and Parallel Ants (PA). Results showed that PA was able to reach a higher solution quality in fewer iterations as the number of parallel instances increased. Furthermore, speed performance was measured across three different hardware solutions – 16 core CPU, 68 core Xeon Phi and up to 4 Geforce GPUs. State of the art, ACO vectorisation techniques such as SS-Roulette were implemented using C++ and CUDA. Although excellent for routing simple TSPs, it was concluded that for complex real-world supply chain routing GPUs are not suitable due to meta-data access footprint required. Thus, our work demonstrates that the standard benchmarks are not suitable for generalised conclusions.