Handbook of Metaheuristic Algorithms

Chapter One: Introduction

Abstract

Since we encounter many complex optimization problems in our daily lives and scientific studies, the development of high-performance search algorithms to solve these complex optimization problems, especially those that are either NP-hard or NP-complete, has been an interesting research topic for years. That is why this chapter begins with an optimization problem, named the traveling salesman problem, as an example to explain how hard such problems can be. This is followed by a discussion of why metaheuristic algorithms are used to solve optimization problems and the main research issues in the implementation of metaheuristic algorithms. The organization of the whole book and of each chapter is explained to show ...