A hybrid beam search looking-ahead algorithm for the circular packing problem

Hakim Akeb and Mhand Hifi ()
Additional contact information
Hakim Akeb: Institut Supérieur du Commerce
Mhand Hifi: Université de Picardie Jules

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, 2010, vol. 20, issue 2, No 1, 130 pages

Abstract: Abstract In this paper, we study the circular packing problem. Its objective is to pack a set of n circular pieces into a rectangular plate R of fixed dimensions L×W. Each piece’s type i, i=1,…,m, is characterized by its radius r i and its demand b i . The objective is to determine the packing pattern corresponding to the minimum unused area of R for the circular pieces placed. This problem is solved by using a hybrid algorithm that adopts beam search and a looking-ahead strategy. A node at a level ℓ of the beam-search tree contains a partial solution corresponding to the circles already placed inside R. Each node is then evaluated using a looking-ahead strategy, based on the minimum local-distance heuristic, by computing the corresponding complete solution. The nodes leading to the best solutions at level ℓ are then chosen for branching. A multi-start strategy is also considered in order to diversify the search space. The computational results show, on a set of benchmark instances, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Packing; Hybrid heuristic; Beam search; Looking-ahead strategy; Minimum local-distance position; Knapsack problems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10878-008-9191-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jcomop:v:20:y:2010:i:2:d:10.1007_s10878-008-9191-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/10878

DOI: 10.1007/s10878-008-9191-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization is currently edited by Thai, My T.

More articles in Journal of Combinatorial Optimization from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().