Near optimal solutions to the grid connection problem

Stochastic optimization using simulated annealing has found wide applications in combinatorial optimization of NP-complete problems in recent years, especially in VLSI related problems. The grid connection problem is a combinatorial optimization problem that is proven to be NP-complete. In this paper the simulated annealing algorithm has been applied to the grid connection problem. The authors also propose an algorithm for the grid connection problem based on certain heuristics. Results of the authors´ simulations show that while both algorithms do yield good solutions, those of the simulated annealing are superior to those of the heuristic algorithm, with rare exceptions