A hybrid algorithm for uncapacitated facility location problems

Location problems are NP-hard combinatorial optimisation problems which are widely studied. This paper presents a hybrid algorithm to solve the Uncapacitated Facility Location (UFL) problems. Denoted as hGA-PSO, this method combines the concepts of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) Algorithm, and creates individuals not only by using operations used in GA, but also by mechanisms of PSO. The proposed algorithm is applied to several benchmark suites collected from OR-library. These studies demonstrate the ability of the hybrid GA-PSO approach to give good solutions for the UFL problems. The performance of the algorithm is also compared with other approaches available in the literature.