A novel approach to the Orienteering Problem based on the Harmony Search algorithm

Area of Science:

• Operations Research
• Computer Science
• Metaheuristic Optimization

Background:

• The Orienteering Problem (OP) is a computationally challenging NP-hard problem with significant real-world applications.
• Effective algorithms are crucial for solving OP instances efficiently.
• Existing methods may struggle with the complexity and scale of OP benchmarks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and present a novel Harmony Search (HS) algorithm tailored for solving Orienteering Problem (OP) instances.
• To evaluate the performance of the proposed HS algorithm against established benchmarks and state-of-the-art methods.

Main Methods:

• Design and implementation of a modified Harmony Search (HS) algorithm.
• Adaptation of the HS algorithm specifically for the constraints and objectives of the Orienteering Problem.
• Rigorous testing on six widely recognized OP benchmark datasets.

Main Results:

• The proposed HS algorithm achieved optimal or near-optimal solutions for all tested OP tasks.
• The average error across benchmarks was remarkably low, below 0.01%.
• Performance comparisons demonstrated superior efficiency compared to current state-of-the-art methods.

Conclusions:

• The novel Harmony Search approach offers a highly effective and efficient solution for the Orienteering Problem.
• This algorithm represents a significant advancement in solving complex combinatorial optimization problems.
• The findings suggest broad applicability in practical scenarios requiring optimized routing and resource allocation.