New Benchmark Instances for the QAP and the Experimental Analysis of Algorithms

Abstract. The quadratic assignment problem arises in a variety of practical settings. It is known to be among the hardest combinatorial problems for exact algorithms. Therefore, a large number of heuristic approaches have been proposed for its solution. In this article we introduce a new, large set of QAP instances that is intended to allow the systematic study of the performance of metaheuristics in dependence of QAP instance characteristics. Additionally, we give computational results with several high performing algorithms known from literature and give exemplary results on the influence of instance characteristics on the performance of these algorithms.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: EVOW
• Authors: Thomas Stützle, Susana Fernandes
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Assignment Problem Arises, EVOW 2004, Hardest Combinatorial Problems, Instance Characteristics