Interested in the Genetic Algorithm? Simulated Annealing? Ant Colony Optimization? Essentials of Metaheuristics covers these and other metaheuristics algorithms, and is intended for undergraduate students, programmers, and non-experts. The book covers a wide range of algorithms, representations, selection and modification operators, and related topics, and includes 71 figures and 135 algorithms great and small. Algorithms include: Gradient Ascent techniques, Hill-Climbing variants, Simulated Annealing, Tabu Search variants, Iterated Local Search, Evolution Strategies, the Genetic Algorithm, the Steady-State Genetic Algorithm, Differential Evolution, Particle Swarm Optimization, Genetic Programming variants, One- and Two-Population Competitive Coevolution, N-Population Cooperative Coevolution, Implicit Fitness Sharing, Deterministic Crowding, NSGA-II, SPEA2, GRASP, Ant Colony Optimization variants, Guided Local Search, LEM, PBIL, UMDA, cGA, BOA, SAMUEL, ZCS, XCS, and XCSF.

A unified view of metaheuristics This book provides a complete background on metaheuristics and shows readers how to design and implement efficient algorithms to solve complex optimization problems across a diverse range of applications, from networking and bioinformatics to engineering design, routing, and scheduling. It presents the main design questions for all families of metaheuristics and clearly illustrates how to implement the algorithms under a software framework to reuse both the design and code. Throughout the book, the key search components of metaheuristics are considered as a toolbox for: Designing efficient metaheuristics (e.g. local search, tabu search, simulated annealing, evolutionary algorithms, particle swarm optimization, scatter search, ant colonies, bee colonies, artificial immune systems) for optimization problems Designing efficient metaheuristics for multi-objective optimization problems Designing hybrid, parallel, and distributed metaheuristics Implementing metaheuristics on sequential and parallel machines Using many case studies and treating design and implementation independently, this book gives readers the skills necessary to solve large-scale optimization problems quickly and efficiently. It is a valuable reference for practicing engineers and researchers from diverse areas dealing with optimization or machine learning; and graduate students in computer science, operations research, control, engineering, business and management, and applied mathematics.

The third edition of this handbook is designed to provide a broad coverage of the concepts, implementations, and applications in metaheuristics. The book’s chapters serve as stand-alone presentations giving both the necessary underpinnings as well as practical guides for implementation. The nature of metaheuristics invites an analyst to modify basic methods in response to problem characteristics, past experiences, and personal preferences, and the chapters in this handbook are designed to facilitate this process as well. This new edition has been fully revised and features new chapters on swarm intelligence and automated design of metaheuristics from flexible algorithm frameworks. The authors who have contributed to this volume represent leading figures from the metaheuristic community and are responsible for pioneering contributions to the fields they write about. Their collective work has significantly enriched the field of optimization in general and combinatorial optimization in particular.Metaheuristics are solution methods that orchestrate an interaction between local improvement procedures and higher level strategies to create a process capable of escaping from local optima and performing a robust search of a solution space. In addition, many new and exciting developments and extensions have been observed in the last few years. Hybrids of metaheuristics with other optimization techniques, like branch-and-bound, mathematical programming or constraint programming are also increasingly popular. On the front of applications, metaheuristics are now used to find high-quality solutions to an ever-growing number of complex, ill-defined real-world problems, in particular combinatorial ones. This handbook should continue to be a great reference for researchers, graduate students, as well as practitioners interested in metaheuristics.

The authors stress the relative simplicity, efficiency, flexibility of use, and suitability of various approaches used to solve difficult optimization problems. The authors are experienced, interdisciplinary lecturers and researchers and in their explanations they demonstrate many shared foundational concepts among the key methodologies. This textbook is a suitable introduction for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and professionals in computer science, engineering, and logistics.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to nature-inspired metaheuristic methods for search and optimization, including the latest trends in evolutionary algorithms and other forms of natural computing. Over 100 different types of these methods are discussed in detail. The authors emphasize non-standard optimization problems and utilize a natural approach to the topic, moving from basic notions to more complex ones. An introductory chapter covers the necessary biological and mathematical backgrounds for understanding the main material. Subsequent chapters then explore almost all of the major metaheuristics for search and optimization created based on natural phenomena, including simulated annealing, recurrent neural networks, genetic algorithms and genetic programming, differential evolution, memetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization, artificial immune systems, ant colony optimization, tabu search and scatter search, bee and bacteria foraging algorithms, harmony search, biomolecular computing, quantum computing, and many others. General topics on dynamic, multimodal, constrained, and multiobjective optimizations are also described. Each chapter includes detailed flowcharts that illustrate specific algorithms and exercises that reinforce important topics. Introduced in the appendix are some benchmarks for the evaluation of metaheuristics. Search and Optimization by Metaheuristics is intended primarily as a textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate students specializing in engineering and computer science. It will also serve as a valuable resource for scientists and researchers working in these areas, as well as those who are interested in search and optimization methods.

Contains case studies from engineering and operations research Includes commented literature for each chapter

Modern metaheuristic algorithms such as bee algorithms and harmony search start to demonstrate their power in dealing with tough optimization problems and even NP-hard problems. This book reviews and introduces the state-of-the-art nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms in optimization, including genetic algorithms, bee algorithms, particle swarm optimization, simulated annealing, ant colony optimization, harmony search, and firefly algorithms. We also briefly introduce the photosynthetic algorithm, the enzyme algorithm, and Tabu search. Worked examples with implementation have been used to show how each algorithm works. This book is thus an ideal textbook for an undergraduate and/or graduate course. As some of the algorithms such as the harmony search and firefly algorithms are at the forefront of current research, this book can also serve as a reference book for researchers.