Comparative Performance of Tabu Search and Simulated Annealing Heuristics for the Quadratic Assignment Problem

TL;DR

This paper compares tabu search and simulated annealing heuristics for the quadratic assignment problem, finding that each performs better at different solution quality levels across various problem instances.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of TS and SA, identifying their relative strengths at different solution quality targets for the quadratic assignment problem.

Findings

SA outperforms TS at higher solution quality targets

TS performs better at lower solution quality targets

Performance varies across different problem instances

Abstract

For almost two decades the question of whether tabu search (TS) or simulated annealing (SA) performs better for the quadratic assignment problem has been unresolved. To answer this question satisfactorily, we compare performance at various values of targeted solution quality, running each heuristic at its optimal number of iterations for each target. We find that for a number of varied problem instances, SA performs better for higher quality targets while TS performs better for lower quality targets.