Discrete Cuckoo Search for Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem

In this paper, a novel population-based meta-heuristic algorithm, Discrete Cuckoo Search (DCS), is applied to solve Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP). The DCS is a modification of the existing Cuckoo Search which was adapted for solving combinatorial optimization problems. Application of the DCS for solving RCPSP was achieved by changing some of the algorithm´s core elements, such as nest, egg, objective function, and movement through the search space. The proposed DCS is then tested on a set of benchmark instances and its performances are compared against other existing meta-heuristic algorithms. The numerical results have shown that the proposed algorithm is very efficient and outperforms several other popular meta-heuristic algorithms, both in terms of quality of the results and execution time.