A path relinking approach for delay-constrained least-cost multicast routing problem

Path relinking is an evolutionary approach for solving a diverse array of optimization problems. The NP-complete Steiner tree problem is a fundamental component of many real world telecommunication applications and is a critical structure underlying multicast communications. This paper describes a novel path relinking algorithm for the delay-constrained least-cost multicast routing problem. Computational results on various random generated networks indicate that our proposed path relinking algorithm results in the best overall performance with regard to total tree cost in comparison with other existing algorithms and heuristics.