Simulated Annealing Applied to Traveling Salesman Problem: A Case Study

Abstract

Intelligent computational techniques are being extensively explored and disseminated to solve complex problems in favor of effective decision making12. This paper describes the use of the Simulated Annealing metaheuristic for the Traveling Salesman Problem - TSP, contained in a dairy distribution company. The objective is to verify the applicability of the metaheuristic and validate its efficiency to solve combinatorial optimization problems, as opposed to an application to the real scenario. The results obtained are compared with the previous studies in the literature, which solve the same TSP by means of Memetic Algorithm and the exact method. With the comparative analysis, it can be verified that the proposed metaheuristic is a method of obtaining good solutions for difficult optimization problems, both in terms of the quality of the solutions obtained and the execution time of the algorithm.