Hybrid ant colony optimization for continuous domains for solving emission and economic dispatch problems

This paper presents a new approach to combined Economic and Emission Dispatch (CEED) problem based on a previous work of us, using a hybrid version of Ant Colony Optimization for Continuous Domains (ACO(R)) and Pattern Search. The CEED is a conflicting multi-objective optimization problem, in which the objective is to minimize both the economic and emission cost while the power demand (and transmission losses) are met. The Hybrid Ant Colony Optimization for Continuous Domains (PS-ACO(R)) is presented and modified in order to solve this family of power generation problems. This technique can cope with continuous optimization problems with or without constraints, it can converge to global optimum due to its ability to escape from local optimum combining two powerful optimization techniques. In order to demonstrate its effectiveness several tests conducted to the proposed PS-ACO(R) algorithm. These series of tests are based on case studies of Economic and Emission Dispatch family problems presented in literature.