Hierarchical approach in clustering to euclidean traveling salesman problem

Abstract

There has been growing interest in studying combinatorial optimization problems by clustering strategy, with a special emphasis on the traveling salesman problem (TSP). TSP naturally arises as a sub problem in much transportation, manufacturing and logistics application, this problem has caught much attention of mathematicians and computer scientists. A clustering approach will decompose TSP into sub graph and form cluster, so it may reduce problem size into smaller problem. Impact of hierarchical approach will be investigated to produce a better clustering strategy that fit into Euclidean TSP. Clustering strategy to Euclidean TSP consist of two main step, there are; clustering and tour construction. The significant of this research is clustering approach solution result has error less than 10% compare to best known solution (TSPLIB) and there is improvement to a hierarchical clustering algorithm in order to fit in such Euclidean TSP solution method. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.