Solving a traveling salesman problem using meta-heuristics

In this article, we have introduced an advanced new method of solving a traveling salesman problem (TSP) with the whale optimization algorithm (WOA), and K-means which is a partitioning-based algorithm used in clustering. The whale optimization algorithm first was introduced in 2016 and later used to solve a TSP problem. In the TSP problem, finding the best path, which is the path with the lowest value in the fitness function, has always been difficult and time-consuming. In our algorithm, we want to find the best tour by combining it with K-means which is a clustering method. In other words, we want to divide our problem into smaller parts called clusters, and then we join the clusters based on their distances. To do this, the WOA algorithm, TSP, and K-means must be combined. Separately, the WOA-TSP algorithm which is an unclustered algorithm is also implemented to be compared with the proposed algorithm. The results are shown through some figures and tables, which prove the effectiveness of this new method.