Abstract
Genetic algorithms are widely used metaheuristic algorithms to solve combinatorial optimization problems that are constructed on the survival of the fittest theory. They obtain near optimal solution in a reasonable computational time, but do not guarantee the optimality of the solution. They start with random initial population of chromosomes, and operate three different operators, namely, selection, crossover and mutation, to produce new and hopefully better populations in consecutive generations. Out of the three operators, crossover operator is the most important operator. There are many existing crossover operators in the literature. In this paper, we propose a new crossover operator, named adaptive sequential constructive crossover, to solve the benchmark travelling salesman problem. We then compare the efficiency of the proposed crossover operator with some existing crossover operators like greedy crossover, sequential constructive crossover, partially mapped crossover operators, etc., under same genetic settings, for solving the problem on some benchmark TSPLIB instances. The experimental study shows the effectiveness of our proposed crossover operator for the problem and it is found to be the best crossover operator.