Solving the Quadratic Assignment Problems using Parallel ACO with Symmetric Multi Processing

Abstract

In this paper, we propose several types of parallel ant colony optimization algorithms with symmetric multi processing for solving the quadratic assignment problem (QAP). These models include the master-slave models and the island models. As a base ant colony optimization algorithm, we used the cunning Ant System (cAS) which showed promising performance our in previous studies. We evaluated each parallel algorithm with a condition that the run time for each parallel algorithm and the base sequential algorithm are the same. The results suggest that using the master-slave model with increased iteration of ant colony optimization algorithms is promising in solving quadratic assignment problems for real or real-like instances.