Advanced SA Options - Initial Tempeature

The initial temperature options should be used in conjunction with the cooling schedule options and the temperature stage termination options.

Various techniques with different levels of complexity can be used to initialise the starting temperature of the simulated annealing search. The search will be more varied and accept a greater number of worsening moves at the start if you use a higher starting temperature compared to using a lower starting temperature with the same cooling schedule. This would allow a greater exploration of the search space but would take longer to run.

 

Fixed

The initial temperature value is used as the starting temperature - no heating or further modifications are applied.

 

Initial Temp

The initial temperature used during the SA search algorithm.

 

Heated

Before the search begins, solutions are evaluated at the current temperature until the acceptance percentage meets or exceeds that stated in the acceptance percentage value. After each attempt, the temperature is multiplied by the increase ratio value. When the acceptance value is satisfied, the heated temperature becomes the initial temperature for the search.

 

Acceptance Percentage

The target acceptance value that must be satisfied before the heating algorithm allows the search to continue.

 

Increase Ratio

The ratio used to increase the temperature between evaluations in the heating algorithm.

 

White84 Heated

A method of heating referred to as White84. This generates a number of random sample solutions and uses the K value to calculate the initial temperature. Commonly used with the Huang cooling schedule.

 

Samples

The number of random samples generated by the White84 heating method.

 

K value

The constant used in the temperature calculation in the White84 heating method.