A New Genetic Algorithm for the Quadratic Assignment Problem

In this paper we propose several variants of a new genetic algorithm for the solution of the quadratic assignment problem. We designed a special merging rule for creating an offspring that exploits the special structure of the problem. We also designed a new type of a tabu search, which we term a concentric tabu search. This tabu search is applied on the offspring before consideration for inclusion in the population. The algorithm provided excellent results for a set of 29 test problems having between 30 and 100 facilities.