Solving Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) Using Invasive Weed Optimization Algorithm

A new powerful optimization algorithm inspired from colonizing weeds is utilized to solvethe well-known quadratic assignment problem (QAP) which is of application in a large numberof practical areas such as plant layout, machinery layout and so on. A set of reference numericalproblems from QAPLIB is taken in order to evaluate the efficiency of the algorithm comparedwith the previous ones which had been applied to solve the addressed problem. The resultsindicate that the algorithm outperforms the competitive ones for a sizable number of theproblems as the problems’ dimensions increase.