OPTIMIZING ANT COLONY ALGORITHM PARAMETERS USING TAGUCHI METHOD

Abstract

In the present study, Taguchi Method (TM) is applied to determine the optimum Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) parameters. The Tool Path Optimization (TPO) for drilling a hole pattern on the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) with 220 holes was examined as a case study. Experimental verification shows that, with the optimal ACO parameters the tool path length is reduced about 2 times and the convergence rate is significantly approved against their average values in the initial data. This setting variant is also confirmed to be actually the best in comparison with available ones. This allows to reduce not only time for machining but also the one for program execution.