Distribution Network Reconfiguration Based on Improved Ant Colony Algorithm and Minimum Spanning Tree

Ant Colony Optimization solves the distribution network reconfiguration problem with imitating the posses of real ants looking for food. Its main features include positive feedback, distributed computing, easy to be combined with other algorithms and application of constructive greedy heuristic. This paper adopts minimum spanning tree algorithm in graph theory to ensure the radiating structure of the reconstructed distribution network. Then this paper improves the searching mode and information elements renewal link of ant colony algorithm to get faster and more superior network. Finally, the IEEE 33 nodes distribution network is used as an example to testify the effectiveness of improved ant colony algorithm.