Tabu Search – Using the Search Experience to Guide the Search Process. An Introduction with Examples

Tabu search has emerged as a new, highly efficient, search paradigm for efficiently finding high quality solutions to combinatorial optimization problems. It is characterized by gathering knowledge during the search, and subsequently profiting from this knowledge. The knowledge can be defined along the dimensions of recency, frequency, quality and influence. This paper gives an introduction to the basic components of tabu search, accompanied by some Norwegian applications.