An Overview of the Last Advances and Applications of Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure

Abstract

One of the most studied methods to get approximate solutions in optimization problems are the heuristics methods. Heuristics are usually employed to find good, but not necessarily optima solutions. The primary purpose of the chapter at hand is to provide a survey of the Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedures (GRASP). GRASP is an iterative multi-start metaheuristic for solving complex optimization problems. Each GRASP iteration consists of a construction phase followed by a local search procedure. In this paper, we first describe the basic components of GRASP and the various elements that compose it. We present different variations of the basic GRASP in order to improve its performance. The GRASP has encompassed a wide range of applications, covering different fields because of its robustness and easy to apply.