Double VNS for the molecular distance geometry problem

In this paper we propose a VNS-based algorithm for the solution of the Molecular Distance Geometry Problem. First, we use VNS to solve a smoothed version of the problem to identify the most promising zone in the solution space. We then use VNS again to solve the original problem restricted to the promising zone. This algorithm often manages to find a solutions having higher accuracy than other methods. This is important as small differences in the objective function value may mean completely different 3D molecular structures