Random Key Cuckoo Search for the Quadratic Assignment Problem

This paper  proposes  an adaptation of the Random- Key  Cuckoo  Search (RKCS)  algorithm for  solving the  famous Quadratic  Assignment   Problem   (QAP).  We  used  a  simplified and efficient random-key encoding scheme to convert a continous space (real numbers) into a combinatorial space. We also consid- ered the displacement of a solution in both spaces by using Le´vy flights. The performance of the RKCS for QAP is tested against a set of benchmarks of QAP from the well-known QAPLIB library, and  the  comparison  with  a set of other  methaheuristics is also carried out.