New Branching Criteria for the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem

비대칭 외판원 문제를 위한 새로운 분지기법

Many algorithms have been developed for optimizing the asymmectric traveling salesman problem known as a representative NP-Complete problem. The most efficient ones of them are branch and bound algorithms based on the subtour elimination approach. To increase efficiency of the branch and bound algorithm. number of decision nodes should be decreased. For this the minimum bound that is more close at the optimal solution should be found or an effective bounding strategy should be used. If the optimal solution has been known, we may apply it usefully to branching. Because a good feasible solution should be found as soon as possible and have similar features of the optimal solution. By the way, the upper bound solution in branch and bound algorithm is most close at the optimal solution. Therefore, the upper bound solution can be used instead of the optimal solution and information of which can be applied to new branching criteria. As mentioned above, this paper will propose an effective branching rule using the information of the upper bound solution in the branch and bound algorithm. And superiority of the new branching rule will be shown by comparing with Bellmore-Malone's one and carpaneto-Toth's one that were already proposed.