Probability Mechanism Based Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm and Its Application in Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problems

Abstract

In this paper, a new probability mechanism based particle swarm optimization (PMPSO) algorithm is proposed to solve combinatorial optimization problems. Based on the idea of traditional PSO, the algorithm generates new particles based on the optimal particles in the population and the historical optimal particles in the individual changes. In our algorithm, new particles are generated by a specially designed probability selection mechanism. We adjust the probability of each child element in the new particle generation based on the difference between the best particles and the elements of each particle. To this end, we redefine the speed, position, and arithmetic symbols in the PMPSO algorithm. To test the performance of PMPSO, we used PMPSO to solve resource-constrained project scheduling problems. Experimental results validated the efficacy of the algorithm.