A novel ACS-based optimum switch relocation method

In this paper, a cooperative agent algorithm, the ant colony system (ACS), for optimum switch relocation is proposed. Switch relocation is a useful tool for distribution automation, since it can reduce the interruption costs without additional capital investments. The formulation of switch relocation is a combinatorial optimization problem with nonlinear and nondifferential objective functions. In this paper, the authors choose the ACS to solve the problem since the ACS has the characteristics of positive feedback, distributed computation, and the use of a constructive greedy heuristic. One of the main goals of this paper is to investigate the applicability of the ACSbased algorithm in the power system optimization problems. Test results show that the proposed ACS-based algorithm can offer a near-optimum solution for switch relocation. The comparisons of the proposed method with a genetic-algorithm (GA)-based method are also shown in the test results to demonstrate the values of the proposed method.