Two problem independent methods for generating initial solutions

The aim of this paper is to present two heuristics vaguely inspired from the evolution of star systems. These methods are simple and can produce a good solution in a short time. While for small dimensional search spaces they can work alone, for large dimensional spaces their results can be used as an initial solution for some other heuristics. We study the effects of the initial solutions generated with these methods on the local search heuristics and on a genetic algorithm. Experimental results show that good solutions can be obtained with a combination of these methods.