Memetic Algorithm with Filtering Scheme for the Minimum Weighted Edge Dominating Set Problem

The minimum weighted edge dominating set problem (MWEDS) generalizes both the weighted vertex cover problem and the problem of covering the edges of graph by a minimum cost set of both vertices and edges. In this paper, we propose a meta heuristic approach based on genetic algorithm and local search to solve the MWEDS problem. Therefore, the proposed method is considered as a memetic search algorithm which is called Memetic Algorithm with filtering scheme for minimum weighted edge dominating set, and called shortly (MAFS). In the MAFS method, three new fitness functions are invoked to effectively measure the solution qualities. The search process in the proposed method uses intensification scheme, called “filtering”, beside the main genetic search operations in order to achieve faster performance. The experimental results proves that the proposed method is promising in solving the MWEDS problem.