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METHOD
Optimization By Ant Colony Method
CHAPTER NO.1
Introduction
The first ant colony optimization (ACO) called ant system was inspired through
studying of the behaviour of ants in 1991 by Macro Dorigo and co-workers. An ant colony is
highly organized, in which one interacting with others through pheromone in perfect
harmony. Optimization problems can be solved through simulating ants behaviours. Since
the first ant system algorithm was proposed, there is a lot of development in ACO. In ant
colony system algorithm, local pheromone is used for ants to search optimum result.
However, high magnitude of computing is its deficiency and sometimes it is inefficient.
Thomas Sttzle etal. Introduced MAX-MIN Ant System (MMAS) in 2000. It is one of the
best algorithms of ACO. It limits total pheromone in every trip or sub-union to avoid local
convergence. However, the limitation of pheromone slows down convergence rate in MMAS.
In optimization algorithm, it is well known that when local optimum solution is
searched out or ants arrive at stagnating state, algorithm may be no longer searching the
global best optimum value. According to our limited knowledge, only Jun Ouyang et al
proposed an improved ant colony system algorithm for multi-colony ant systems. In their
algorithms, when ants arrived at local optimum solution, pheromone will be decreased in
order to make algorithm escaping from the local optimum solution. When ants arrived at
local optimum solution, or at stagnating state, it would not converge at the global best
optimum solution. In this paper, a modified algorithm, multi-colony ant system based on a
pheromone arithmetic crossover and a repulsive operator, is proposed to avoid such
stagnating state. In this algorithm, firstly several colonies of ant system are created, and then
they perform iterating and updating their pheromone arrays respective lyuntil one ant colony
system reaches its local optimum solution. Every ant colony system owns its pheromone
array and parameters and records its local optimum solution. Furthermore, once an ant colony
system arrives at its local optimum solution, it updates its local optimum solution and sends
this solution to global best-found centre. Thirdly, when an old ant colony system is chosen
according to elimination rules, it will be destroyed and reinitialized through application of the
pheromone arithmetic crossover and the repulsive operator based on several global best-so-
far optimum solutions. The whole algorithm implements iterations until global best optimum
solution is searched out. The following sections will introduce some concepts and rules of
this multi-colony ant system. This paper is organized as follows. Section II briefly explains
the basic ACO algorithm and its main variant MMAS we use as a basis for multi-colony ant
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
algorithm. In Section III we Ant Colony Optimization - Methods and Applications describe
detailed how to use both the pheromone crossover and the repulsive operator to reinitialize a
stagnated colony in our multi-colony ant algorithm. A parallel asynchronous algorithm
process is also presented. Experimental results from the multi-colony ant algorithm are
presented in Section IV along with a comparative performance analysis involving other
existing approaches. Finally, Section V provides some concluding remarks. Optimization
problems are of high importance both for the industrial world as well as for the scientific
world.
Examples of practical optimization problems include train scheduling, time tabling,
shape optimization, telecommunication network design, or problems from computational
biology. The research community has simplified many of these problems in order to obtain
scientific test cases such as the well-known travelling salesman problem (TSP) .The TSP
models the situation of a travelling salesman who is required to pass through a number of
cities. The goal of the travelling salesman is to traverse these cities (visiting each city exactly
once) so that the total travelling distance is minimal. Another example is the problem of
protein folding, which is one of the most challenging problems in computational biology,
molecular biology, biochemistry and physics. It consists of finding the functional shape or
conformation of a protein in two- or three-dimensional space, for example, under simplified
lattice models such as the hydrophobic-polar model. The TSP and the protein folding
problem under lattice models belong to an important class of optimization problems known
as combinatorial optimization (CO).According to Papadimitriou and CO problem is an
optimization problem in which are given a finite set of objects S (also called the search space)
and an objective function f:S !R+ that assigns a positive cost value to each of the objects .
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
CHAPTER NO.2
Ant colony optimization
2.1 The origins of ant colony optimization
Marco Dorigo and colleagues introduced the first ACO algorithms in the early1990s .
The development of these algorithms was inspired by the observation of ant colonies. Ants
are social insects. They live in colonies and their behaviour is governed by the goal of colony
survival rather than being focused on the survival of individuals. The behaviour that provided
the inspiration for ACO is the ants foraging behaviour, and in particular, how ants can find
shortest paths between food sources and their nest. When searching for food, ants initially
explore the area surrounding their nest in a random manner. While moving, ants leave a
chemical pheromone trail on the ground. Ants can smell pheromone. When choosing their
way, they tend to choose, in probability, paths marked by strong pheromone concentrations.
As soon as an ant finds a food source, it evaluates the quantity and the quality of the food and
carries some of it back to the nest. During the return trip, the quantity of pheromone that an
ant leaves on the ground may depend on the quantity and quality of the food. The pheromone
trails will guide other ants to the food source. It has been shown in that the indirect
communication between the ants via pheromone trailsknown as stigmergy enables them to
find shortest paths between their nest and food sources.
This is explained in an idealized setting in Fig. 1.As a first step towards an algorithm
for discrete optimization we present in the following a discredited and simplified model of
the phenomenon explained in Fig. 1. After presenting the model we will outline the
differences between the model and the behaviour of real ants. Our model consists of a graph
G = (V , E), where V consists of two nodes, namely. (Representing the nest of the ants), and
ad (representing the food source). Furthermore, E consists of two links, namely e1 and e2,
between vs. and vd. To e1 we assign a length of l1, and to e2 a length of l2 such thatl2 > l1.
In other words, e1 represents the short path between vs. and vd, and e2 represents the long
path. Real ants deposit pheromone on the paths on which they move. Thus, the chemical
pheromone trails are modelled as follows. We introduce an artificial pheromone value (i for
each of the two links ei , i = 1, 2. Such a value indicates the strength
of the pheromone trail on the corresponding path. Finally, we introduce artificial ants. Each
ant behaves as follows:
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
5
Optimization By Ant Colony Method
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
distributed systems, that in spite of the simplicity of each individual, present a high level of
social organization when observed together. Some examples of ant colonys capabilities
found in Dorigo etal, 1999 are: division of labour and task allocation, cemetery brood
sorting, cooperative transport and finding the shortest path between two or more locations
(often between a food source and a nest).
The first ACO algorithm developed was initially applied to the Travelling Salesman
Problem. The algorithm was based on the ant colony capability to find the shortest path
between a food source and a nest. The algorithm uses artificial ants that cooperate on finding
solutions to the problem through communication mediated by artificial pheromone trails.
While moving on the graph associated with the problem, artificial ants deposit pheromone on
the edges traversed marking a path that may be followed by other members of the colony,
which then reinforce the pheromone on that path. With this stigmergetic communication, ants
have their activities coordinated. This self-organizing behaviour results in a self-reinforcing
process that leads to the formation of a path marked by high pheromone concentration, while
paths that are less used tend to have a diminishing pheromone level due to evaporation. This
concept can be applied to any combinatorial optimization problem for which a constructive
heuristic can be defined. The process of constructing solutions can be regarded as a walk on a
construction graph where each edge of the graph represent a possible step the ant can take.
ACO algorithms are essentially constructive, as ants generate solutions by adding solution
components, corresponding to the edges chosen, to an initially empty solution until the
solution is complete.
The ants movement is guided by (is) a heuristic information ( ) that represents prior
information about the problem instance to be solved and by (ii) a pheromone trail () that
encodes a memory about the ant colony search process which is continuously updated by the
ants. In many cases is the cost of adding the component (associated with the given graph
edge) to the solution under construction. These values are used by the ants heuristic rule to
make probabilistic decisions on the next node to be visited (or next edge to be used).When all
ants have generated their solutions, the pheromone trail is updated considering the quality of
the corresponding candidate solutions: reinforcing components of good solutions(positive
feedback) and applying a certain level of pheromone evaporation in all edges. The ACO
algorithms were initially used to solve combinatorial optimization problems, inspired by the
path marking behaviour, and later applied to many other problems. Also, other ant colony
capabilities have inspired computer scientists to use ACO on different types of applications.
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
associated variable values) in a manner that respects pheromone concentration and also some
heuristic preference. As such, an ant k at iteration t will change the value for otherwise(where
R is a constant called the pheromone reward factor; and fitnessk is the value of the objective
function (solution performance) calculated for ant k. It is noted that the amount of pheromone
each variable according to the following probability:
Pijk; tZ
tijt_a!hij_b
P
lij
tijt_a! hij_b
Where Pij (k, t) Zprobability that option lij is chosen by ant kfor variable i at iteration t; tij (t)
Pheromone concentration associated with option lij at iteration t;hijZheuristic factor for
preferring among available options and is an indicator of how good it is for ant k to select
option lij (this heuristic factorise generated by some problem characteristics and its value is
fixed for each option lij); and a and b are exponent parameters that control the relative
importance of pheromone concentration versus the heuristic factor . Both a and b can take
values greater than zero and can be determined by trial and error. Based on the previous
discussion, the main parameters involved in ACO are: number of ants m; number of iteration
st; exponents a and b; pheromone evaporation rate.
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
CHAPTER NO.3
APPLICATION OF ANTCOLONY METHODS
This reviews the current literature of ACO for water resources systems analysis, and
suggests future directions and challenges for using ACO for solving water resources systems
problems [parts of this Chapter are based on Outfield and Tubaltzev with permission from the
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)]. Ali et al. used ant colony optimization to
accelerate convergence of the differential evolution (DE) technique. Their methodology,
entitled ant colony differential evolution (ACDE), initializes the ant population using based
learning techniques, utilizes a random localization methodology, and simulates the movement
of ants to refine the best solution found in each iteration. The ACDE was applied to different
test problems including a simplified water resources system. Abbaspour et al. Utilized ant
colony optimization for calibrating an unsaturated soil hydraulic model. The use of ant
colony replaced the traditional inverse modelling approach and was found to be successful
inovercoming previous parameterization related optimization problems. Li et al. Developed a
hybrid ant colony-simulated annealing method for groundwater parameter estimation. The
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
The first to introduce ant colony optimization for water distribution systems
managementwere Maier et. al. Maier et al. applied a traditional ant colony settings for
optimizingtwo benchmark gravitational one loading conditions water distribution systems.
Zecchin etAnt Colony Optimization for Water Resources Systems Analysis Review and
Challenges. Studied parameterization of ant colony optimization for water distribution
systems and suggested guidelines for selecting them. Christodoulou and Elias proposed anent
colony optimization algorithm for efficient routing of piping networks for improving its
efficiency and resiliency. Lopez-Ibez et al. Used ant colony for optimizing the operation of
pumping in water distribution systems.
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
CHAPTER NO. 4
CONCLUSION
A brief description of each method is presented along with a p facilitate their
implementation. Visual Basic programs were written to implement each algorithm. Two
benchmark continuous optimization test problems were solved using all but the ACO
algorithm, and the comparative results were presented. Also presented were the comparative
results found when a discrete optimization test problem was solved using all five algorithms.
The PSO method was generally found to perform better than other algorithms in terms of
success rate and solution quality, while being second best in terms of processing time.
In this work we first gave a detailed description of the origins and the basics of ACO
algorithms. Then we outlined the general framework of the ACO and presented some of the
most successful ACO variants today. After listing some representative applications of ACO,
we summarized the existing theoretical results and outlined the latest developments
concerning the adaptation of ACO algorithms to continuous optimization. Finally, we
provided survey on a very interesting recent research direction: The hybridization of ACO
algorithms with more classical artificial intelligence and operations research methods. As
examples we presented the hybridization with beam search and with constraint programming.
The central idea behind these two approaches is the reduction of the search space that has to
be explored by ACO. This can be especially useful when large scale problem instances are
considered. Other hybridization examples are the application of ACO for solution refinement
in multilevel frameworks, and the application of ACO to auxiliary search spaces. In the
opinion of the author, this research direction offers many possibilities for valuable future
research. In this paper, five evolutionary-based search methods were presented. These
include: GA, MA, PSO, ACO, ands.
.
Future research
Ant colony optimization for water resources systems analysis is in its early stages of
exploitation as depicted from the literature review described above. Applications to optimal
reservoir operations, long term monitoring, some general water resources problems, and
water distribution systems design and operation were developed. Still, most of the water
resources systems community has not yet utilized the potential fusing ant colony
optimization, as occurred in other research disciplines such as structure engineering.
Research is thus almost completely open for developing and applying ant colony optimization
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
algorithms for water resources systems problems and analysis. The challenges of using ant
colony optimization in water resources systems analysis vary with the specific theme and
objective of interest. Yet, commonly to water resources systems analysis is the inherent
probabilistic complex nature of the physical systems such round water, watersheds,
distribution systems, and others. Those yield non-linearity and on-smoothness in describing
the systems physical behaviour. As a result, almost any water resources systems model which
obviously needs to capture its physics as model constraints is highly complex. Traditional
non-linear algorithms such as gradient type algorithms are thus very much limited. As every
problem has its unique structure and trade off among its decision variables and formulations,
the challenge of developing ant colony algorithms for water resources systems analysis is
mainly in tailoring the specific problems characteristics with an ant colony formulation. This
requires the model to explore different avenues of formulations such that the resulted model
will be computationally feasible. This is a tremendous challenging task which captures most
of the innovativeness aspects of new model and application. Below are the major fields of
water resources systems analysis for which new ant colony optimization models could be
developed and applied:
Climate change: climate variability and change, adaptive management, decision
making Groundwater: parameter estimation, operation, contamination, remediation
estimation and simulation, end users; field work tracer studies, pressure tests, case studies;
contaminant and water security detection, source identification, response; network
vulnerability security assessments, network reliability, disaster response, emerging issues
network water quality real-time monitoring and model dose exposure, mixing and
dispersion, storage tanks, asset management, Maintenance, system expansion and
rehabilitation; sustainable water distribution systems design and operation, water reuse and
supply, dual distribution system Water economics: water demand household, commercial;
water supply cost of production, efficiency studies, technological change, industry studies;
valuing water services ecological services, sanitation navigation, recreation, irrigation,
industrial Water policy: trans boundary, drought, flood, navigation, recreation, irrigation,
industrial, climate, energy Watersheds and river basins: watershed management, water and
energy systems, application hydrologic predictions and forecasts, best management practices,
storm water In this paper, we have studied a multi objective buffers sizing problem using ant
colony optimization. The two objectives of our study are the maximization of the throughput
rate and the minimization of the total size of the buffers. To solve the problem, three
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
multiobjective have been developed: a multi objective ant colony optimization algorithm, a
multi objective ant colony algorithm with a guided local search and a Lorenz multi objective
ant colony optimization algorithm. Computational experimental shave been realized on
different assembly lines configurations and we have compared our three methods to each
others. We have noticed that the L-MOACS performances are better than those of the
MOACS and slightly better than those of the MOACS-GLS algorithm. Regarding the
perspectives of this work, other methods based on the Pareto or the Lorenz dominance may
be tested such as genetic algorithms or particle swarm optimization algorithms. Other
hybridization techniques may also be tested in order to see the impact on the achieved
solutions. Finally, exact methods may be developed to compare the optimal solutions with
those of the applied met heuristics.
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Optimization By Ant Colony Method
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