An ant algorithm with a new pheromone evaluation rule for total tardiness problems

Abstract

Ant Colony Optimization is an evolutionary method that has recently been applied to scheduling problems. We propose an ACO algorithm for the Single Machine Total Weighted Tardiness Problem. Compared to an existing ACO algorithm for the unweighted Total Tardiness Problem our algorithm has several improvements. The main novelty is that in our algorithm the ants are guided on their way to good solutions by sums of pheromone values. This allows the ants to take into account pheromone values that have already been used for making earlier decisions.