Simulated annealing on a multiprocessor

Abstract

The authors present a method for parallelizing the simulated annealing algorithm by mapping the algorithm onto a dynamically structured tree of processors. The resulting parallel simulated annealing algorithm is discussed and its performance evaluated using simulation techniques. An important property of the parallel algorithm is that it maintains the same move decision sequence as the serial simulated annealing algorithm, thus avoiding problems associated with move conflicts and erroneous move acceptance/rejection decisions which have been associated with other parallel simulated annealing algorithm proposals. The parallel algorithm presented achieves speedups between log/sub 2/N and (N+log/sub 2/N)/2 where N is the number of processors in the parallel processor. Experimental results are presented on three versions of the basic method: the static, dynamic balanced, and dynamic unbalanced parallel-simulated-annealing algorithms.< >