A New Approach to Solve the TSP using an Improved Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

Genetic algorithms are one of the most important methods used to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem. Therefore, many researchers have tried to improve the Genetic Algorithm by using different methods and operations in order to find the optimal solution within reasonable time. This paper intends to find a new approach that adopts an improved genetic algorithm to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem, and compare with the well known heuristic method, namely, Kohonen Self-Organizing Map by using different data sets of symmetric TSP from TSPLIB. In order to improve the search process for the optimal solution, the proposed approach consists of three strategies: two separate tour segments sets, the improved crossover operator, and the improved mutation operator. The two separate tour segments sets are construction heuristic which produces tour of the first generation with low cost. The improved crossover operator finds the candidate fine tour segments in parents and preserves them for descendants. The mutation operator is an operator which can optimize a chromosome with mutation successfully by altering the mutation probability dynamically. The two improved operators can be used to avoid the premature convergence. Simulation experiments are executed to investigate the quality of the solution and convergence speed by using a representative set of test problems taken from TSPLIB. The results of a comparison between the new approach using the improved genetic algorithm and the Kohonen Self-Organizing Map show that the new approach yields better results for problems up to 200 cities.