An iterative variable-based fixation heuristic for the 0-1 multidimensional knapsack problem

An iterative scheme which is based on a dynamic fixation of the variables is developed to solve the 0-1 multidimensional knapsack problem. Such a scheme has the advantage of generating memory information, which is used on the one hand to choose the variables to fix either permanently or temporarily and on the other hand to construct feasible solutions of the problem. Adaptations of this mechanism are proposed to explore different parts of the search space and to enhance the behaviour of the algorithm. Encouraging results are presented when tested on the correlated instances of the 0-1 multidimensional knapsack problem.