Efficient reconfiguration of distribution systems using ant colony optimization adapted by graph theory

This paper presents an efficient method for the reconfiguration of radial distribution systems for minimization of real power loss using adapted ant colony optimization. The conventional ant colony optimization is adapted by graph theory to always create feasible radial topologies during the whole evolutionary process. This avoids tedious mesh check and hence reduces the computational burden. The initial population is created randomly and a heuristic spark is introduced to enhance the pace of the search process. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated on IEEE 33-bus and 70-bus test distribution systems and 135-bus real distribution system. The simulation results show that the proposed method is efficient and promising for reconfiguration problem of radial distribution systems.