  An algorithm is proposed to calculate traveling dissipative solitons for the
FitzHugh-Nagumo equations. It is based on the application of the steepest
descent method to a certain functional. This approach can be used to find
solitons whenever the problem has a variational structure. Since the method
seeks the lowest energy configuration, it has robust performance qualities. It
is global in nature, so that initial guesses for both the pulse profile and the
wave speed can be quite different from the correct solution. Also, bifurcations
have a minimal effect on the performance. With an appropriate set of physical
parameters in two dimensional domains, we observe the co-existence of
single-soliton and 2-soliton solutions together with additional unstable
traveling pulses. The algorithm automatically calculates these various pulses
as the energy minimizers at different wave speeds. In addition to finding
individual solutions, this approach could be used to augment or initiate
continuation algorithms.
