Solving Dynamic TSP by Using River Formation Dynamics

Abstract

River formation dynamics (RFD) is an heuristic optimization algorithm based on copying how water forms rivers by eroding the ground and depositing sediments. After drops transform the landscape by increasing/decreasing the altitude of places, solutions are given in the form of paths of decreasing altitudes. Decreasing gradients are constructed, and these gradients are followed by subsequent drops to compose new gradients and reinforce the best ones. We apply this method to solve dynamic TSP. We show that the gradient orientation of RFD makes it specially suitable for solving this problem, and we compare our results with those given by ant colony optimization (ACO).