A Scatter Search Algorithm for the Automatic Clustering Problem

We present a new hybrid algorithm for data clustering. This new proposal uses one of the well known evolutionary algorithms called Scatter Search. Scatter Search operates on a small set of solutions and makes only a limited use of randomization for diversification when searching for globally optimal solutions. The proposed method discovers automatically cluster number and cluster centres without prior knowledge of a possible number of class, and without any initial partition. We have applied this algorithm on standard and real world databases and we have obtained good results compared to the K-means algorithm and an artificial ant based algorithm, the Antclass algorithm.