Application of Fuzzy Optimization to the Orienteering Problem

Abstract

This paper deals with the orienteering problem (OP) which is a combination of two well-known problems (i.e., travelling salesman problem and the knapsack problem). OP is an NP-hard problem and is useful in appropriately modeling several challenging applications. As the parameters involved in these applications cannot be measured precisely, depicting them using crisp numbers is unrealistic. Further, the decision maker may be satisfied with graded satisfaction levels of solutions, which cannot be formulated using a crisp program. To deal with the above-stated two issues, we formulate the fuzzy orienteering problem (FOP) and provide a method to solve it. Here we state the two necessary conditions of OP of maximizing the total collected score and minimizing the time taken to traverse a path (within the specified time bound) as fuzzy goals and the remaining necessary conditions as crisp constraints. Using the max-min formulation of the fuzzy sets obtained from the fuzzy goals, we calculate the fuzzy decision sets (Z and Z) that contain the feasible paths and the desirable paths, respectively, along with the degrees to which they are acceptable. To efficiently solve large instances of FOP, we also present a parallel algorithm on CREW PRAM model.