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Neural routing solvers (NRSs) that leverage deep learning to tackle vehicle routing problems have demonstrated notable potential for practical applications. By learning implicit heuristic rules from data, NRSs replace the handcrafted…
In Nature Machine Intelligence 4, 367 (2022), Schuetz et al provide a scheme to employ graph neural networks (GNN) as a heuristic to solve a variety of classical, NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. It describes how the network is…
Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) achieve cutting-edge performance on a variety of problems. However, due to their high computational and memory demands, deploying RNNs on resource constrained mobile devices is a challenging task. To…
Path-planning algorithms are an important part of a wide variety of robotic applications, such as mobile robot navigation and robot arm manipulation. However, in large search spaces in which local traps may exist, it remains challenging to…
Distribution network reconfiguration (DNR) is a tool used by operators to balance line load flows and mitigate losses. As distributed generation and flexible load adoption increases, the impact of DNR on the security, efficiency, and…
Combinatorial Optimization underpins many real-world applications and yet, designing performant algorithms to solve these complex, typically NP-hard, problems remains a significant research challenge. Reinforcement Learning (RL) provides a…
Metaheuristic search methods have proven to be essential tools for tackling complex optimization challenges, but their full potential is often constrained by conventional algorithmic frameworks. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach…
Approximate nearest neighbor search (ANN) is a common way to retrieve relevant search results, especially now in the context of large language models and retrieval augmented generation. One of the most widely used algorithms for ANN is…
The neural network-based approach to solving partial differential equations has attracted considerable attention due to its simplicity and flexibility in representing the solution of the partial differential equation. In training a neural…
Training neural networks can be challenging, especially as the complexity of the problem increases. Despite using wider or deeper networks, training them can be a tedious process, especially if a wrong choice of the hyperparameter is made.…
Topology impacts important network performance metrics, including link utilization, throughput and latency, and is of central importance to network operators. However, due to the combinatorial nature of network topology, it is extremely…
The prediction of urban vehicle flow and speed can greatly facilitate people's travel, and also can provide reasonable advice for the decision-making of relevant government departments. However, due to the spatial, temporal and hierarchy of…
Combinatorial Optimisation problems arise in several application domains and are often formulated in terms of graphs. Many of these problems are NP-hard, but exact solutions are not always needed. Several heuristics have been developed to…
Variable neighborhood search (VNS) is a metaheuristic for solving optimization problems based on a simple principle: systematic changes of neighborhoods within the search, both in the descent to local minima and in the escape from the…
In this study, we propose a reinforcement learning-based adaptive variable neighborhood search (RL-AVNS) method designed for effectively solving the Vehicle Routing Problem with Multiple Time Windows (VRPMTW). Unlike traditional adaptive…
The Steiner Team Orienteering Problem (STOP) is defined on a digraph in which arcs are associated with traverse times, and whose vertices are labeled as either mandatory or profitable, being the latter provided with rewards (profits). Given…
This paper presents an evolutionary metaheuristic called Multiple Search Neuroevolution (MSN) to optimize deep neural networks. The algorithm attempts to search multiple promising regions in the search space simultaneously, maintaining…
Graph search planning algorithms for navigation typically rely heavily on heuristics to efficiently plan paths. As a result, while such approaches require no training phase and can directly plan long horizon paths, they often require…
The integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) into evolutionary frameworks has established a new paradigm for automated heuristic discovery. Despite their promise, these methods typically search in the discrete space of program syntax,…
We demonstrate that a single training trajectory can transform a graph neural network into an unsupervised heuristic for combinatorial optimization. Focusing on the Travelling Salesman Problem, we show that encoding global structural…