Cooperative parallel SAT local search with path relinking

Abstract

In this paper, we propose the use of path relinking to improve the performance of parallel portfolio-based local search solvers for the Boolean Satisfiability problem. In the portfolio-based framework several algorithms explore the search space in parallel, either independently or cooperatively with some communication between the solvers. Path relinking is a method to maintain an appropriate balance between diversification and intensification (and explore paths that aggregate elite solutions) to properly craft a new assignment for the variables to restart from. We present an empirical study that suggest that path relinking outperforms a set of well-known parallel portfolio-based local search algorithms with and without cooperation