10 research outputs found
Improving the Asymmetric TSP by Considering Graph Structure
Recent works on cost based relaxations have improved Constraint Programming
(CP) models for the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). We provide a short survey
over solving asymmetric TSP with CP. Then, we suggest new implied propagators
based on general graph properties. We experimentally show that such implied
propagators bring robustness to pathological instances and highlight the fact
that graph structure can significantly improve search heuristics behavior.
Finally, we show that our approach outperforms current state of the art
results.Comment: Technical repor
Constraint Programming Algorithms for Route Planning Exploiting Geometrical Information
Problems affecting the transport of people or goods are plentiful in industry
and commerce and they also appear to be at the origin of much more complex
problems. In recent years, the logistics and transport sector keeps growing
supported by technological progress, i.e. companies to be competitive are
resorting to innovative technologies aimed at efficiency and effectiveness.
This is why companies are increasingly using technologies such as Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT). Artificial
intelligence, in particular, is often used to solve optimization problems in
order to provide users with the most efficient ways to exploit available
resources. In this work we present an overview of our current research
activities concerning the development of new algorithms, based on CLP
techniques, for route planning problems exploiting the geometric information
intrinsically present in many of them or in some of their variants. The
research so far has focused in particular on the Euclidean Traveling
Salesperson Problem (Euclidean TSP) with the aim to exploit the results
obtained also to other problems of the same category, such as the Euclidean
Vehicle Routing Problem (Euclidean VRP), in the future.Comment: In Proceedings ICLP 2020, arXiv:2009.0915
Improved filtering for the Euclidean Traveling Salesperson Problem in CLP(FD)
The Traveling Salesperson Problem (TSP) is one of the best-known problems in computer science. The Euclidean TSP is a special case in which each node is identified by its coordinates on the plane and the Euclidean distance is used as cost function. Many works in the Constraint Programming (CP) literature addressed the TSP, and use as benchmark Euclidean instances; however the usual approach is to build a distance matrix from the points coordinates, and then address the problem as a TSP, disregarding the information carried by the points coordinates for constraint propagation. In this work, we propose to use geometric information, present in Euclidean TSP instances, to improve the filtering power. In order to have a declarative approach, we implemented the filtering algorithms in Constraint Logic Programming on Finite Domains (CLP(FD))
A k-Opt Based Constraint for the TSP
The LKH algorithm based on k-opt is an extremely efficient algorithm solving the TSP. Given a non-optimal tour in a graph, the idea of k-opt is to iteratively swap k edges of this tour in order to find a shorter tour. However, the optimality of a tour cannot be proved with this method. In that case, exact solving methods such as CP can be used. The CP model is based on a graph variable with mandatory and optional edges. Through branch-and-bound and filtering algorithms, the set of mandatory edges will be modified. In this paper, we introduce a new constraint to the CP model named mandatory Hamiltonian path constraint searching for k-opt in the mandatory Hamiltonian paths. Experiments have shown that the mandatory Hamiltonian path constraint allows us to gain on average a factor of 3 on the solving time. In addition, we have been able to solve some instances that remain unsolved with the state of the art CP solver with a 1 week time out
Quantum-accelerated constraint programming
Constraint programming (CP) is a paradigm used to model and solve constraint
satisfaction and combinatorial optimization problems. In CP, problems are
modeled with constraints that describe acceptable solutions and solved with
backtracking tree search augmented with logical inference. In this paper, we
show how quantum algorithms can accelerate CP, at both the levels of inference
and search. Leveraging existing quantum algorithms, we introduce a
quantum-accelerated filtering algorithm for the global
constraint and discuss its applicability to a broader family of global
constraints with similar structure. We propose frameworks for the integration
of quantum filtering algorithms within both classical and quantum backtracking
search schemes, including a novel hybrid classical-quantum backtracking search
method. This work suggests that CP is a promising candidate application for
early fault-tolerant quantum computers and beyond.Comment: published in Quantu
Exact and heuristic approaches for multi-component optimisation problems
Modern real world applications are commonly complex, consisting of multiple subsystems
that may interact with or depend on each other. Our case-study about wave
energy converters (WEC) for the renewable energy industry shows that in such a
multi-component system, optimising each individual component cannot yield global
optimality for the entire system, owing to the influence of their interactions or the
dependence on one another. Moreover, modelling a multi-component problem is
rarely easy due to the complexity of the issues, which leads to a desire for existent
models on which to base, and against which to test, calculations. Recently,
the travelling thief problem (TTP) has attracted significant attention in the Evolutionary
Computation community. It is intended to offer a better model for multicomponent
systems, where researchers can push forward their understanding of
the optimisation of such systems, especially for understanding of the interconnections
between the components. The TTP interconnects with two classic NP-hard
problems, namely the travelling salesman problem and the 0-1 knapsack problem,
via the transportation cost that non-linearly depends on the accumulated weight
of items. This non-linear setting introduces additional complexity. We study this
nonlinearity through a simplified version of the TTP - the packing while travelling
(PWT) problem, which aims to maximise the total reward for a given travelling tour.
Our theoretical and experimental investigations demonstrate that the difficulty of a
given problem instance is significantly influenced by adjusting a single parameter,
the renting rate, which prompted our method of creating relatively hard instances
using simple evolutionary algorithms. Our further investigations into the PWT
problem yield a dynamic programming (DP) approach that can solve the problem in
pseudo polynomial time and a corresponding approximation scheme. The experimental
investigations show that the new approaches outperform the state-of-the-art
ones. We furthermore propose three exact algorithms for the TTP, based on the DP
of the PWT problem. By employing the exact DP for the underlying PWT problem
as a subroutine, we create a novel indicator-based hybrid evolutionary approach for
a new bi-criteria formulation of the TTP. This hybrid design takes advantage of the
DP approach, along with a number of novel indicators and selection mechanisms
to achieve better solutions. The results of computational experiments show that the
approach is capable to outperform the state-of-the-art results.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Computer Science, 201
Improved Filtering for Weighted Circuit Constraints
We study the weighted circuit constraint in the context of constraint programming. It appears as a substructure in many practical applications, particularly routing problems. We propose a domain filtering algorithm for the weighted circuit constraint that is based on the 1-tree relaxation of Held and Karp. In addition, we study domain filtering based on an additive bounding procedure that combines the 1-tree relaxation with the assignment problem relaxation. Experimental results on Traveling Salesman Problem instances demonstrate that our filtering algorithms can dramatically reduce the problem size. In particular, the search tree size and solving time can be reduced by several orders of magnitude, compared to existing constraint programming approaches. Moreover, for medium-size problem instances, our method is competitive with the state-of-the-art special-purpose TSP solver Concorde.</p