Ant colony optimization for finding best routes in disaster affected urban area

This paper is dedicated to post disaster road network verification and routing using High Resolution Satellite Imagery (HRSI) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithms. By determination of damage degree to each road element using satellite information, a modified ACO algorithm is designed and applied to find best routes with respect to each road's length and damage degree. The mentioned algorithm's innovative aspect is evident in the invented transition rule. Finally, finding best route from any source to destination is conducted not only on the basis of shortest path but also according to the current functionality and exploitability of the network. As experimented, it is observed that ACO algorithm is able to present more reliable paths compared to deterministic solutions where damaged roads are absolutely crossed off the network. Moreover, considering the flexibility of ACO in tuning parameters the algorithm is able to perform routing in case of deploying various vehicles for different operations.