Tabu search, created by Fred W. Glover in 1986 and formalized in 1989, is a local search method used for mathematical optimization.
Local searches take a potential solution to a problem and check its immediate neighbors (that is, solutions that are similar except for one or two minor details) in the hope of finding an improved solution. Local search methods have a tendency to become stuck in suboptimal regions or on plateaus where many solutions are equally fit.
Tabu search enhances the performance of these techniques by using memory structures that describe the visited solutions or user-provided sets of rules. If a potential solution has been previously visited within a certain short-term period or if it has violated a rule, it is marked as "taboo" ("tabu" being a different spelling of the same word) so that the algorithm does not consider that possibility repeatedly.
Read more about Tabu Search: Basic Description, Pseudo-code, Example: Traveling Salesman Problem, TS-PSO Algorithm
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