  A method for determining the orbital parameters of interacting pairs of
galaxies is presented and evaluated using artificial data. The method consists
of a genetic algorithm which can search efficiently through the very large
space of possible orbits. It is found that, in most cases, orbital parameters
close to the actual orbital parameters of the pair can be found. The method
does not require information about the velocity field of the interacting
system, and is able to cope with noisy data. The inner regions of the galaxies,
which are difficult to model, can be neglected, and the orbital parameters can
be determined using the remaining information.
