A meta heuristic solution for closest string problem using ant colony system

Abstract

Suppose ∑ is the alphabet set and S is the set of strings with equal length over alphabet ∑. The closest string problem seeks for a string over ∑ that minimizes the maximum hamming distance with other strings in S. The closest string problem is NP-complete. This problem has particular importance in computational biology and coding theory. In this paper we present an algorithm based on ant colony system. The proposed algorithm can solve closest string problem with reasonable time complexity. Experimental results have shown the correctness of algorithm. At the end, a comparison with one Meta heuristic algorithm is also given. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.