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A hybrid ant colony optimization with fireworks algorithm to solve capacitated vehicle routing problem

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Abstract

The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) is a classical combinatorial optimization problem, which objective is to minimize the vehicle travel distance. In this paper a hybrid ant colony optimization based on Fireworks Algorithm (FWA) is proposed to solve the CVRP. The main work of hybrid algorithm is reflected in three aspects: firstly, FWA is introduced on the basis of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to increase the diversity of algorithms and avoid falling into local optimum too early in the search process; secondly, the elite ant strategy is added to increase the attractiveness of the local optimal path to the ants; thirdly, the Max-Min Ant System (MMAS) is added to limit the pheromone value within a range to prevent the pheromone from increasing too fast on the path. In this paper, the proposed hybrid algorithm is tested in 71 instances and compared with other intelligent algorithms. Experimental results show that the proposed hybrid algorithm finds new best solutions and is competitive with other algorithms.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Key Project of Ningxia Natural Science Foundation (2022AAC02043), the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (11961001, 61561001), the Construction Project of First-class Subjects in Ningxia Higher Education (NXYLXK2017B09), the Major Proprietary Funded Project of North Minzu University (ZDZX201901).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics and Information Science, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, 750021, China

    Yuelin Gao, Hongguang Wu & Wanting Wang

  2. Ningxia Province Key Laboratory of Intelligent Information and Data Processing, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, 750021, China

    Yuelin Gao & Hongguang Wu

  3. Ningxia Province Cooperative Innovation Center of Scientific Computing and Intelligent Information Processing, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, 750021, China

    Wanting Wang

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  1. Yuelin Gao
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Correspondence to Yuelin Gao.

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Hongguang Wu and Wanting Wang contributed equally to this work.

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Gao, Y., Wu, H. & Wang, W. A hybrid ant colony optimization with fireworks algorithm to solve capacitated vehicle routing problem. Appl Intell 53, 7326–7342 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-022-03912-7

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