Particle swarm optimization algorithm for quadratic assignment problem

The paper uses a particle swarm optimization (ab. PSO) algorithm to solve the quadratic assignment problem (ab. QAP), and propose a novel particle presentation for the problem. The experimental results on different QAP instances show that this algorithm is able to find good solutions efficiently. PSO has got many successful applications in many continuous domain optimization problems, but is seldom applied in discrete domain. It is a kind of brand-new attempt that this paper uses PSO algorithm to solve QAP problem. It is undoubtedly enlightening us to utilize PSO algorithm to discrete domain problem (especially combinatorial optimization), and it will establish the foundation of further investigation at the same time.