A discrete state transition algorithm for the task assignment problem

A novel discrete State Transition Algorithm (STA) is proposed for solving the Task Assignment Problems (TAP) in this study. The commonly used formulation of TAP is reconstructed to transform the constrained optimization problem into an unconstrained one by establishing an one-to-one mapping between a matrix solution of TAP and a vector permutation so that it can be well addressed by the STA. In order to enhance the search ability of original discrete STA, a strategy of second transition is designed to explore more search space. Several experimental tests are given to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, and the results have testified the effectiveness of the improved discrete STA.