A hybrid ant colony optimization approach for the design of reliable networks

This paper presents a new solution approach, which is a hybridization of ant colony optimization (ACO) and simulated annealing (SA), called (liACO) to design of communication networks. The design problem is to find the optimal network topology where total cost is minimum and all- terminal reliability is not less-than a given level of reliability. The effectiveness of the liACO is investigated comparing its results with those obtained by SA and ACO, which are basic forms of the liACO, and also GAs given in the literature for the design problem. Computational results show that the liACO is an effective heuristic approach to design of reliable networks.