Solving Travelling Salesman Problem Using Ant Systems: A Programmer’s Approach

For an engineer, optimization is the process of determining the best design. In this work, a computer-based approach to a design optimization is investigated. This enables us to evaluate many design combinations that cannot be done manually. Travelling salesman problem (TSP) is leading problem among NP hard combinatorial optimization problems. It is widely used in many engineering applications. Ant system is a heuristic approach used to solve combinatorial optimization problems. In this work, a MATLAB program to solve TSP using Ant Search method is developed and is explained through the perspective of a programmer. Mathematical model of the problem is presented along with a detailed flowchart to describe the algorithm. The proposed program is described in accordance with the flow chart. Results obtained for two cases are summarized using graphs and CPU times. Finally a brief study on tuning of parameters of the method is also presented. © 2019, Springer Nature India Private Limited.