Speculative parallel simulated annealing with acceptance prediction

In the paper, a novel problem-independent parallel realisation of the simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is proposed. By employing speculative computation, concurrency is introduced into the inherently sequential algorithm. This is achieved by predicting the acceptance of each generated move before the move is evaluated. Based on this prediction, subsequent moves can be proposed and evaluated before decisions on whether to accept or reject preceding moves are made. To preserve the sequential decision on whether to accept or reject subsequent to a prediction that is eventually wrong are discarded. A simple and prediction mechanism using previous move statistics is developed. Efficient realisation of the parallel SA algorithm on a ring multiprocessor architecture is described. Analytical and simulation performance results are presented. These results indicate that the authors´ parallel SA is best implemented on a coarse to medium grain multiprocessor system. Factors affecting performance in actual implementations are also discussed