Abstract: An adaptive filtered reactive local search(AF-RLS) algorithm for solving the maximum clique problem(MCP) is proposed.The promising moving direction in the neighborhood is selected out through constructing the independent set constraint,thereby the probability of the local search towards the optimal solution is increased.Furthermore,the adaptive setting method of the local search depth parameter according to the structure of the problem solution space is proposed based on the analysis of the escape ability and costs of two escape strategies.Both the drifting analysis theory and simulation results on 37 classical tests show that the performance of the proposed AF-RLS algorithm is obviously better than that of the RLS(reactive least square) algorithm.