Solving the flexible job-shop scheduling problem with quantum-inspired algorithm

The flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP) is typically NP hard. A quantum inspired algorithm is proposed to solve the FJSP. Firstly, the FJSP is formulated. Secondly, the detail of the quantum inspired algorithm is designed, including the quantum chromosome encoding and decoding mechanism, the updating method with the rotation gate matrix. The elitist strategy is integrated to speed up the convergence. The niche technology is combined to avoid trapping into the local optimization. Finally, some benchmark instances are tested to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results shows that the proposed algorithm outperform the compared algorithms.