Using Teamwork for the Distribution of Approximately Solving the
Traveling Salesman Problem with Genetic Algorithms

Joerg Denzinger, Stephan Scholz
Fachbereich Informatik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern
D-67663 Kaiserslautern
Germany
E-mail: denzinge@informatik.uni-kl.de,
        stscholz@informatik.uni-kl.de

Abstract
We present a distributed system, DOTT , for approximately solving the
Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) based on the Teamwork method. So-called
experts and specialists work independently and in parallel for given time
periods. For TSP, specialists are tour construction algorithms and experts
use modified genetic algorithms in which after each application of a genetic
operator the resulting tour is locally optimized before it is added to
the population. After a given time period the work of each expert and
specialist is judged by a referee. A new start population, including
selected individuals from each expert and specialist, is generated by the
supervisor, based on the judgments of the referees. Our system is able to
find better tours than each of the experts or specialists working alone. Also
results comparable to those of single runs can be found much faster by a
team.

Keywords
distributed search, teamwork, genetic algorithms, traveling salesman
Source
anonymous FTP server ftp.uni-kl.de [131.246.94.94]
path: /reports_uni-kl/computer_science/SEKI/1997/
file: Denzinger.SR-97-04.ps.gz