A quantum-PSO algorithm for no-wait flow shop scheduling problem

In this paper, a quantum-PSO algorithm (QPSO) based on quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA) was proposed for the no-wait flow shop scheduling problem with makespan criterion. Based on adopting quantum angle to encode the quantum chromosomes, the individuals and group's optimal information carried by particles were used to guide the update of quantum rotation gate to simplify operation and accelerate algorithm convergence speed. Meanwhile, a kind of conversion mechanism was proposed to solve the mapping problem from binary coding with quantum collapse to job sorting. In addition, quantum chromosomal catastrophe, crossover and mutation operation were adopted to avoid being trapped at local optimum. Simulation results demonstrate that the new method outperforms to other intelligent algorithms in terms of solution quality and convergence rate.