Simulated Annealing

Simulated annealing is an optimization method based on an analogy with the physical process of toughening alloys, such as steel, called annealing. Annealing involves heating an alloy and cooling it slowly to increase its toughness. In simulated annealing, an artificial “temperature” is used to control the optimization process, of finding the overall maximum or minimum of a function. As cooling a metal slowly allows the atoms time to move to the optimum positions for toughness, giving time to look for a solution in simulated annealing permits a successful search for the global optimum and avoids being trapped at a local suboptima. It is used, for example, to optimize routing of planes by airlines for most efficient use of the fleet. It was devised by S. Kirkpatrick.


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Simulated Annealing, Simulated annealing is an optimization method based on an analogy with the physical process of toughening alloys, such as steel, called annealing. Annealing involves heating an alloy and cooling it slowly to increase its toughness. In simulated annealing, an artificial “temperature” is used to control the optimization process, of finding the overall maximum or minimum of a function. As cooling a metal slowly allows the atoms time to move to the optimum positions for toughness, giving time to look for a solution in simulated annealing permits a successful search for the global optimum and avoids being trapped at a local suboptima. It is used, for example, to optimize routing of planes by airlines for most efficient use of the fleet. It was devised by S. Kirkpatrick.,