A swarm intelligence approach to the minimum reload cost spanning tree problem

This paper deals with a problem on edge-colored graphs. The aim is to find a minimum reload cost spanning tree using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) approach. Given an edge-colored graph, reload costs arise at nodes and depend on the pair of colors on the edges used in traversal through that node. The problem finds practical applications in several domains viz. telecommunication, energy, transportation etc. In addition to an ACO algorithm, we have also implemented a greedy heuristic and a random search technique. Computational results show that ACO approach is able to find better solutions to this problem in comparison with greedy and random search techniques.