Adaptive Learning Modified Great Deluge Hyper-Heuristics

The International Timetabling Competition (ITC) 2021 focuses on sports scheduling, a domain intricately connected to optimizing combinatorics problems. Within the framework of the ITC 2021 challenge, a crucial task is to precisely allocate matches to their designated time slots. Addressing this challenge involves the utilization of the Adaptive Learning Modified Great Deluge (ALMGD) algorithm, which belongs to the realm of hyper-heuristics. This algorithm represents an evolutionary step from the foundational great deluge algorithm, incorporating an acceptance mechanism intricately woven with self-adaptive learning. To assess its efficacy, the performance of the ALMGD algorithm is scrutinized through a comparative analysis with the hill climbing and great deluge algorithms. As a result, the proposed algorithm can produce a solution that is superior to the comparison algorithm. The modified great deluge algorithm can reduce the penalty by 36%, while the hill climbing algorithm can only reduce the penalty by 29% and the great deluge algorithm reaches 34%.