An Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm solution to Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) problem

摘要

This paper presents the solution of the Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) problem using an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm: the Ant System with elitist strategy (AS{sub}e). The idea of the elitist strategy in the context of the Ant System is to give extra emphasis to the best path found so far after every iteration. When the trail levels are updated, this path is treated as if a certain number of ants, namely the elitist ants, had chosen it. The AS{sub}e is applied to sample ELD problem composed of six generators. The results of the AS{sub}e are compared with those of the Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Gradient-Based approach.