New heuristic algorithm for unweighted minimum vertex cover

The minimum vertex cover (MVC) problem belongs to the class of NP-complete graph theoretical problems, which plays a central role in theoretical computer science and it has numerous real life applications. We are unlikely to find a polynomial-time algorithm for solving the vertex-cover problem exactly. In this paper, a fast heuristic algorithm, called Isolation Algorithm (IA), has been designed to find the minimum vertex cover of a graph. The IA has been tested on DIMACS benchmark graphs and BHOSLIB instances. The results of the computational experiments have shown that the IA can yield better solutions on small size graphs for solving the minimum vertex cover problem.