This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent advancements in Genetic Quantum Algorithms (GQAs) and their application to combinatorial optimization problems.As quantum computing gains momentum, researchers are increasingly integrating quantum principles with classical metaheuristics like genetic algorithms to address NP-hard challenges such as the traveling salesman problem (TSP), job-shop scheduling, and graph coloring.This review synthesizes peer-reviewed studies published between 2023 and 2025.It highlights key innovations, performance outcomes, convergence behavior, scalability, and hardware constraints.The analysis reveals that GQAs offer significant improvements in solution accuracy, search efficiency, and robustness over classical techniques, though issues such as decoherence, quantum noise, and circuit depth remain open areas of exploration.
This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent advancements in Genetic Quantum Algorithms (GQAs) and their application to combinatorial optimization problems.As quantum computing gains momentum, researchers are increasingly integrating quantum principles with classical metaheuristics like genetic algorithms to address NP-hard challenges such as the traveling salesman problem (TSP), job-shop scheduling, and graph coloring.This review synthesizes peer-reviewed studies published between 2023 and 2025.It highlights key innovations, performance outcomes, convergence behavior, scalability, and hardware constraints.The analysis reveals that GQAs offer significant improvements in solution accuracy, search efficiency, and robustness over classical techniques, though issues such as decoherence, quantum noise, and circuit depth remain open areas of exploration.
Quantum-Inspired Genetic Algorithms (QIGAs) are a trailblazing force in the ever-evolving field of optimization, combining traditional genetic algorithms with quantum concepts to solve challenging combinatorial problems. By contrasting QIGAs with traditional Genetic Algorithms (GAs) in the setting of the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), this study explores the potential of QIGAs. The research reveals the transformational potential of quantum-inspired techniques through a thorough investigation of convergence speed, solution quality, and scalability.
This paper implements a new way of solving a problem called the traveling salesman problem (TSP) using quantum genetic algorithm (QGA). We compared how well this new approach works to the traditional method known as a classical genetic algorithm (CGA). The TSP is a well-established challenge in combinatorial optimization where the objective is to find the most efficient path to visit a series of cities, minimizing the total distance, and returning to the starting point. We chose the TSP to test the performance of both algorithms because of its computational complexity and importance in practical applications. We choose the dataset from the international standard library TSPLIB for our experiments. By designing and implementing both algorithms and conducting experiments on various sizes and types of TSP instances, we provide an in-depth analysis of the accuracy of the optimal solution, the number of iterations, the execution time, and the stability of the algorithms for both. The empirical findings indicate that the CGA outperforms the QGA in terms of finding superior solutions more quickly in most of the test instances, especially when the problem size is large. This suggests that although the principle of quantum computing provides a new way to solve complex combinatorial optimisation problems, the implementation of quantum phenomena and the setting of parameters such as the optimal angle for a quantum revolving gate is challenging and need further optimisation to achieve the desired results. Additionally, it is important to note that the QGA has not been tested on real quantum hardware, so its true performance remains unverified. These limitations provide rich opportunities for further research in the future.
This paper proposes a novel evolutionary computing method called a genetic quantum algorithm (GQA). GQA is based on the concept and principles of quantum computing such as qubits and superposition of states. Instead of binary, numeric, or symbolic representation, by adopting qubit chromosome as a representation GQA can represent a linear superposition of solutions due to its probabilistic representation. As genetic operators, quantum gates are employed for the search of the best solution. Rapid convergence and good global search capability characterize the performance of GQA. The effectiveness and the applicability of GQA are demonstrated by experimental results on the knapsack problem, which is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem. The results show that GQA is superior to other genetic algorithms using penalty functions, repair methods and decoders.
Optimization algorithms for combinatorial problems play a critical role in a wide range of applications, from logistics and scheduling to cryptography and artificial intelligence. Traditional classical methods, such as simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, and branch-and-bound techniques, have been widely employed to solve these problems, but they often face limitations in terms of computational efficiency and scalability as problem complexity grows. In recent years, quantum computing has emerged as a promising alternative, with quantum annealing offering a novel approach to solving combinatorial optimization problems. This study provides a comparative analysis of quantum annealing and classical optimization methods, highlighting their respective strengths and limitations. We explore how quantum annealing, through leveraging quantum tunnelling and superposition, has the potential to outperform classical algorithms in specific problem domains and Noisy Mean Field Annealing (NMFA) is used to comparisons of all algorithms. Benchmarking various combinatorial problems, such as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), Max-Cut, Knapsack, and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP), this paper discusses performance metrics, computational time, and scalability. The findings suggest that while classical methods remain robust and practical for many real-world problems, quantum annealing holds significant promise, especially as quantum hardware continues to mature. However, there remain challenges in terms of noise, coherence, and problem mapping, which currently limit the full realization of quantum annealing's potential. This study offers insights into the future directions of optimization techniques and the evolving role of quantum computing in solving complex combinatorial problems.
NP-hard problems are one of the most computationally intensive challenges in computer science, appearing in many domains such as logistics, cybersecurity, drug design, and financial modelling. Classical algorithms become impractical as problem size increases due to combinatorial explosion. This paper presents a structured framework for analysing quantum algorithms targeting NP-hard optimization problems, like the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), Max-Cut, and Boolean Satisfiability (SAT). We have developed a taxonomy which categorizes quantum approaches—quantum annealing, variational algorithms (QAOA/VQE), and Grover-based search—based on problem encoding strategies, resource requirements, and theoretical guarantees. From the comparative analysis of existing literature, we: 1) Map algorithm classes to problem domains (e.g., QAOA for Max-Cut, annealing for TSP) 2) Identify performance trade-offs between solution quality, qubit counts, and circuit depth 3) Analyse hardware compatibility constraints across NISQ platforms 4) Reveal fundamental scalability barriers including noise susceptibility and embedding overhead The framework establishes implementation guidelines for near- term quantum hardware and proposes hybrid quantum-classical pathways to bridge theoretical potential and practical deployment. This systematic analysis prioritizes research directions for achieving quantum advantage in combinatorial optimization.
Combined with quantum computing and genetic algorithm, quantum genetic algorithm (QGA) shows considerable ability of parallelism. Experiments have shown that QGA performs quite well on TSP, job shop problem and some other typical combinatorial optimization problems. The other problems like nutritional diet which can be transformed into specific combinational optimization problem also can be solved through QGA smoothly. This paper sums up the main points of QGA for general combinatorial optimization problems. These points such as modeling of the problem, qubit decoding and rotation strategy are useful to enhance the convergence speed of QGA and avoid premature at the same time.