TERM PAPER ON -
ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION
Introduction
In COMPUTER SCIENCE and OPERATION RESEARCH, the ant colony
optimization algorithm(ACO) is a probabilistic technique for solving
computational problems which can be reduced to finding good paths
through graphs.
This algorithm is a member of the ant colony algorithms family, in swarm
intelligence methods, and it constitutes some metaheuristic optimizations.
There are various algorithms, that are member of the ant colony
optimizations algorithms, aiming to search for an optimal path in a graph,
based on the behavior of ants seeking a path between their colony and a
source of food.
The original idea has since diversified to solve a wider class of numerical
problems, and as a result, several problems have emerged, drawing on
various aspects of the behavior of ants.
Introduction Cont..
In the next generation of wireless communication systems, there will
be need of networks that can establish themselves without any
requirement of preexisting infrastructure.
Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETS) - Mobile implies that the
interconnecting nodes are not fixed to be remain at one place, rather
they can move from one place to the other. Ad-Hoc implies that the
network does not depend on any pre-existing infrastructure such as
routers.
One of the most important performance parameter in ad- hoc
networks is minimizing the total transmission energy in the path and
extending the battery life of the nodes.
Introduction Cont…
There exists a protocol Minimum Transmission Power
Routing (MTPR) which tries to minimize the total
transmission power .
THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF
ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION
IS TO MINIMIZE THE PATH
AND POWER CONSUMPTION.
Overview
“Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)
studies artificial systems that take
inspiration from the behavior of real
ant colonies and which are used to
solve discrete optimization problems.”
-Source: ACO website, http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/ACO/about.html
Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)
PRACTICALLY……
Ants go through the food while laying down
pheromone trails
Shortest path is discovered via pheromone trails
each ant moves at random (first)
pheromone is deposited on path
Shorter path, more pheromone rails (positive feedback
sys)
ants follow the intense pheromone trails
A Practical Scenario
All is well in the world of the ant.
Ant Colony Optimization (AC)
Naturally Observed Ant Behavior
Oh no! An obstacle has blocked our path!
Naturally Observed Ant Behavior
Where do we go? Everybody, flip a coin.
Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)
Naturally Observed Ant Behavior
Shorter path reinforced.
ACTUAL SCENARIO
Actual Scenario
Swarm Intelligence
Stigmergy
Autocatalyzation
Ant System
ACTUAL SCENARIO !!!
Almost blind.
Incapable of achieving complex tasks alone.
Rely on the phenomena of swarm intelligence for
survival.
Capable of establishing shortest-route paths from their
colony to feeding sources and back.
Use stigmergic communication via pheromone trails.
Actual Scenario!!! (cont..)
Follow existing pheromone trails with high probability.
What emerges is a form of autocatalytic behavior: the more
ants follow a trail, the more attractive that trail becomes for
being followed.
The process is thus characterized by a positive feedback
loop, where the probability of a discrete path choice
increases with the number of times the same path was
chosen before.
“Swarm Intelligence”
Collective system capable of accomplishing difficult
tasks in dynamic and varied environments without any
external guidance or control and with no central
coordination
Achieving a collective performance which could not
normally be achieved by an individual acting alone
Constituting a natural model particularly suited to
distributed problem solving
“Stigmergic”
Two individuals interact indirectly when one of them
modifies the environment and the other responds to the
new environment at a later time. This is stigmergy.
Real ants use stigmergy. How again?
PHEROMONES!!!
Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)
“Autocatalyzation”
Autocatalysis is a positive
feedback loop that drives the
ants to explore promising
aspects of the search space over
less promising areas.
Initial state:
E t=0 E t=1 E
no ants
30 ants 30 ants
D 15 ants
D 10 ants
D
15 ants 20 ants
d=1 d = 0.5
τ = 15 τ = 30
H C H C H C
τ = 15 τ = 30
d=1 d = 0.5
15 ants 15 ants 10 ants 20 ants
B B B
30 ants 30 ants
A A A
(a) (b) (c)
Autocatalyzation
This is why ACO algorithms are
called autocatalytic positive
feedback algorithms!
Ant Colony Optimization
ACO for Traveling Salesman Problem
The first ACO algorithm was called the Ant
system and it was aimed to solve the travelling salesman
problem, in which the goal is to find the shortest round-
trip to link a series of cities. At each stage, the ant chooses
to move from one city to another according to some rules:
It must visit each city exactly once;
A distant city has less chance of being chosen (the visibility);
The more intense the pheromone trail laid out on an edge between
two cities, the greater the probability that that edge will be chosen;
Having completed its journey, the ant deposits more pheromones
on all edges it traversed, if the journey is short;
After each iteration, trails of pheromones evaporate.
Ant System
First introduced by Marco Dorigo in 1992
Progenitor to “Ant Colony System,” later discussed
Result of research on computational intelligence
approaches to combinatorial optimization
Originally applied to Traveling Salesman Problem
Applied later to various hard optimization
problems
Traveling Salesman Problem
TSP PROBLEM : Given N cities, and a distance function d between cities,
find a tour that:
1. Goes through every city once and only once
2. Minimizes the total distance.
• Problem is NP-hard
• Classical combinatorial
optimization problem to test.
HOW TO IMPLEMENT IN A PROGRAM
Ants: Simple computer agents
Move ant: Pick next component in the const. solution
Pheromone: ik, j
Memory: MK or TabuK
Next move: Use probability to move ant
Ant Systems (AS)
Ant Systems for TSP
Graph (N,E): where N = cities/nodes, E = edges
d ij = the tour cost from city i to city j (edge weight)
Ant move from one city i to the next j with some transition probability.
B
A
C
Algorithm for TSP(AS)
Initialize
Place each ant in a randomly chosen city
For Each Ant
Choose NextCity(For Each Ant)
yes
more cities
to visit
No
Return to the initial cities
Update pheromone level using the tour cost for each ant
No
Stopping
criteria
yes
Print Best tour
Let see with this small example:
Iteration 1
[A] [B]
1 2
A
B
[C]
[D] [E]
4 D 5
E
Iteration 2
[E,A] [C,B]
5
A 3
B
[B,C]
2
C
[A,D]
[D,E]
1
D 4
E
Iteration 3
[D,E,A] [E,A,B]
4
5
A
B
[A,D,C]
1
C
[B,C,D]
[C,B,E]
2
D 3
E
Iteration 4
[B,C,D,A] [D,E,A,B]
2 4
A
B
[E,A,B,C]
5
C
[C,B,E,D]
[A,D,C,E]
3
D 1
E
Iteration 5
[C,B,E,D,A] [A,D,C,E,B]
1
3
A
B
[D,E,A,B,C]
4
C
[E,A,B,C,D]
[B,C,D,A,E]
5
D
E 2
Iteration 6
[B,C,D,A,E,B]
[A,D,C,E,B,A]
2
1 A
B
[C,B,E,D,A,C]
3
C
[D,E,A,B,C,D] [E,A,B,C,D,E]
4 5
D
E
CALCULATION
1. Path and Pheromone
Evaluation
2. End of First Run
3. Save Best Tour (Sequence and length)
4. All ants die
5. New ants are born
COMMON EXTENSIONS TO ACO
ALGORITHMS
Here are some of most popular variations of ACO algorithms-
Elitist Ant System (EAS)
MMAS
As
rank
ACS
COAC
ACO WITH FUZZY
Extensions(cont..)
Elitist ant system(EAS)
The global best solution deposits pheromone on every iteration
along with all the other ants.
Max-Min ant system (MMAS)
Added Maximum and Minimum pheromone amounts [τmax,τmin]
Only global best or iteration best tour deposited pheromone. All edges
are initialized to τmax and reinitialized to τmax when nearing
stagnation.
Rank-based ant system (ASrank)
All solutions are ranked according to their length. The amount of
pheromone deposited is then weighted for each solution, such that
solutions with shorter paths deposit more pheromone than the
solutions with longer paths.
Extensions(cont..)
Ant Colony System (ACS)
It has been presented before.
Continuous orthogonal ant colony (COAC)
The pheromone deposit mechanism of COAC is to enable ants to
search for solutions collaboratively and effectively. By using an
orthogonal design method, ants in the feasible domain can explore
their chosen regions rapidly and efficiently, with enhanced global
search capability and accuracy.
The orthogonal design method and the adaptive radius adjustment
method can also be extended to other optimization algorithms for
delivering wider advantages in solving practical problems.
Ant Colony Optimization with Fuzzy Logic(ACO WITH FUZZY)
This method introduces fuzzy intelligence into ants to accelerate
searching ability.
ACO Applications
Scheduling Problem
Job-shop scheduling problem (JSP)
Open-shop scheduling problem (OSP)
Resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP)
Group-shop scheduling problem (GSP)
Vehicle routing problem
Multi-depot vehicle routing problem (MDVRP)
Period vehicle routing problem (PVRP)
Split delivery vehicle routing problem (SDVRP)
Stochastic vehicle routing problem (SVRP)
Vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW)
Applications (cont.. )
Assignment problem
Quadratic assignment problem(QAP)
Generalized assignment problem (GAP)
Frequency assignment problem (FAP)
Redundancy allocation problem
Set problem
Set covering problem(SCP)
Set partition problem (SPP)
Multiple knapsack problem (MKP)
Maximum independent set problem (MIS)
Applications(cont..)
Others
Connection-oriented network routing
Connectionless network routing
Data mining
Discounted cash flows in project scheduling
Distributed Information Retrieval
Grid Workflow Scheduling Problem
Image processing
Intelligent testing system
System identification
Protein Folding
Power Electronic Circuit Design
ACO Algorithms : An Overview
Problem name Authors Algorithm name Year
Traveling salesman Dorigo, Maniezzo & Colorni AS 1991
Gamberdella & Dorigo Ant-Q 1995
Dorigo & Gamberdella ACS &ACS 3 opt 1996
Stutzle & Hoos MMAS 1997
Bullnheimer, Hartl & Strauss ASrank 1997
Cordon, et al. BWAS 2000
Quadratic assignment Maniezzo, Colorni & Dorigo AS-QAP 1994
Gamberdella, Taillard & Dorigo HAS-QAP 1997
Stutzle & Hoos MMAS-QAP 1998
Maniezzo ANTS-QAP 1999
Maniezzo & Colorni AS-QAP 1994
Scheduling problems Colorni, Dorigo & Maniezzo AS-JSP 1997
Stutzle AS-SMTTP 1999
Barker et al ACS-SMTTP 1999
den Besten, Stutzle & Dorigo ACS-SMTWTP 2000
Merkle, Middenderf & Schmeck ACO-RCPS 1997
Vehicle routing Bullnheimer, Hartl & Strauss AS-VRP 1999
Gamberdella, Taillard & Agazzi HAS-VRP 1999
ACO Algorithms : An Overview cont…
Problem name Authors Algorithm name Year
Connection-oriented Schoonderwood et al. ABC 1996
Network routing White, Pagurek & Oppacher ASGA 1998
Di Caro & Dorigo AntNet-FS 1998
Bonabeau et al. ABC-smart ants 1998
Connection-less Di Caro & Dorigo AntNet & AntNet-FA 1997
Network routing Subramanian, Druschel & Chen Regular ants 1997
Heusse et al. CAF 1998
van der Put & Rethkrantz ABC-backward 1998
Sequential ordering Gamberdella& Dorigo HAS-SOP 1997
Graph coloring Costa & Hertz ANTCOL 1997
Shortest common super sequence Michel & Middendorf AS_SCS 1998
Frequency assignment Maniezzo & Carbonaro ANTS-FAP 1998
Generalized assignment Ramalhinho Lourenco & Serra MMAS-GAP 1998
Multiple knapsack Leguizamon & Michalewicz AS-MKP 1999
Optical networks routing Navarro Varela & Sinclair ACO-VWP 1999
Redundancy allocation Liang & Smith ACO-RAP 1999
Constraint satisfaction Solnon Ant-P-solver 2000
Related methods
• Genetic algorithms (GA) maintain a pool of solutions rather than just
one. The process of finding superior solutions mimics that of evolution,
with solutions being combined or mutated to alter the pool of solutions,
with solutions of inferior quality being discarded.
• Simulated annealing (SA) is a related global optimization technique
which traverses the search space by generating neighboring solutions of
the current solution. A superior neighbor is always accepted. An inferior
neighbor is accepted probabilistically based on the difference in quality
and a temperature parameter. The temperature parameter is modified as
the algorithm progresses to alter the nature of the search.
• Reactive search optimization focuses on combining machine learning
with optimization, by adding an internal feedback loop to self-tune the
free parameters of an algorithm to the characteristics of the problem, of
the instance, and of the local situation around the current solution.
RELATED METHODS(cont..)
• Tabu search (TS) is similar to simulated annealing in that
both traverse the solution space by testing mutations of an
individual solution. While simulated annealing generates only
one mutated solution, tabu search generates many mutated
solutions and moves to the solution with the lowest fitness of
those generated. To prevent cycling and encourage greater
movement through the solution space, a tabu list is
maintained of partial or complete solutions. It is forbidden to
move to a solution that contains elements of the tabu list,
which is updated as the solution traverses the solution space.
• Stochastic diffusion search (SDS), an agent-based
probabilistic global search and optimization technique best
suited to problems where the objective function can be
decomposed into multiple independent partial-functions.
• etc
Advantages
Positive Feedback accounts for rapid discovery of good
solutions
Distributed computation avoids premature convergence
The greedy heuristic helps find acceptable solution in the
early solution in the early stages of the search process.
The collective interaction of a population of agents.
Disadvantages
Slower convergence than other Heuristics
Performed poorly for TSP problems larger than 75 cities.
No centralized processor to guide the AS towards good
solutions
Conclusion
ACO is a recently proposed metaheuristic approach for
solving hard combinatorial optimization problems(NP
HARD Problems).
Artificial ants implement a randomized construction
heuristic which makes probabilistic decisions.
The a cumulated search experience is taken into account by
the adaptation of the pheromone trail.
ACO Shows great performance with the “ill-structured”
problems like network routing.
In ACO Local search is extremely important to obtain good
results.
Thank You!!!
