A Novel Ant Colony System Based on Traditional Chinese Medicine Theory

By applying the health protection method of “bu” and the treatment method “xie” from traditional Chinese medicine to ant colony system (ACS), a novel ant colony system (CACS) is proposed. The core of CACS lies in the construction of “bu” operator and “xie” operator. The “bu” operator is made up of the good solution elements pool and the “bu” operation. The “bu” operation is that ants select from the good solution elements pool first and only if there are no feasible candidates are the remaining normal solution elements considered when ants construct solutions. The “xie” operator consists of “xie” operation and abnormal solution elements pheromone trails update rule. The “xie” operation is to remove the abnormal solution elements from solutions after ants have completed the construction of solutions. The construction methods of “bu” operator and “xie” operator are demonstrated by TSP. To validate the superiority of CACS, CACS and ACS and the latest improved ant colony are compared as regards TSP. The simulation results show that CACS promises excellent performance not only in the convergence speed but also in the quality of solution.