Mathematical Optimization

Motivation

Optimizing the seating arrangement of an examination hall to maximze the distance between the students that belong to the same subject. Given a room configuration (No. of rows and coloumns) and the number of students, my objective is to use biologically inspired optimization algorithms to propose the seating plan. I chose Particle Swarm Optimization to solve the problem at hand. But later applied different Soft & Evolutionary algorithms such as Ant Colony Optimization, Differential Evolution and Genetic Algorithm etc.

Course Project- (Aug-Nov 2012)
IIT Bhubaneswar, India
School of Electrical Sciences
Supervisor: Prof. GanapatiPanda

Methodology

Fig.1 - Problem Description

Particle Swarm Optimization

Click here for details about PSO.

Performance Measures/Fitness

Fitness function: Sum of distances between each student to every other student that belong to the same subject. We need to maximize this function using GA/DE/PSO etc.

Sample Configuration

Fig.2. shows the seating plan for 9X5 classroom configuration.

Fig.2 - Result after simulation.

Achievement

My work has been used to generate the optimal seating plan at IIT Bhubaneswar.
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