Scatter Search and Path Relinking

–The evolutionary approach called scatter search, and its generalized form called path relinking, originated from strategies for creating composite decision rules and surrogate constraints. Recent studies demonstrate the practical advantages of these approaches for solving a diverse array of optimization problems from both classical and real world settings. Scatter search and path relinking contrast with other evolutionary procedures, such as genetic algorithms, by providing unifying principles for joining solutions based on generalized path constructions (in both Euclidean and neighborhood spaces) and by utilizing strategic designs where other approaches resort to randomization. Additional advantages are provided by intensification and diversification mechanisms that exploit adaptive memory, drawing on foundations that link scatter search and path relinking to tabu search. The goal of this paper is to clarify the connection between these developments in evolutionary methods, and to highlight key ideas and research issues that offer promise of yielding future advances. Published in New Ideas in Optimization, D. Corne, M. Dorigo and F. Glover, eds, McGraw Hill, 1999, Chapter 19, 297316. This research was supported in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grant #F49620-97-1-0271.