A novel chaotic search for quadratic assignment problems

We propose a novel method for solving the quadratic assignment problems. First, we realize the conventional tabu search on a neural network, and modify it to a chaotic version. Our novel method includes both effects of chaotic dynamics and tabu search. We compare the performance of the novel chaotic search with the conventional tabu search and an exponential tabu search whose memory effect for tabu (forbidding previous moves) decays exponentially. We show that the exponential tabu search has higher performance than the conventional tabu search, and further that the novel method with a chaotic neural network exhibits the best performance. We also propose a controlling method of the chaotic neural network for realizing easy and robust applications of our method. Then, better performance can be realized without manual parameter setting for various problems. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.