A Memetic Algorithm for the Generalized Minimum Vertex-Biconnected Network Problem

The generalized minimum vertex-biconnected network problem plays an important role in the design of survivable backbone networks that should be fault tolerant to single component outage. When given a graph where the nodes are partitioned into clusters, the goal is to find a subgraph of minimum costs that connects exactly one node from each cluster in a vertex-biconnected way.We present a memetic algorithm that uses fast local improvement methods to produce high quality solutions and an intelligent crossover operator which controls the balance between diversity and intensity in the population. Tests on Euclidean TSPlib instances with up to 442 nodes show that this approach is highly efficient.