Mann, Zoltán Ádám ; Szép, Tamás
Contributor:Korbicz, Józef (1951- ) - red. ; Uciński, Dariusz - red.
Title:Accelerating backtrack search with a best-first-search strategy
Group publication title: Subject and Keywords:best-first search ; backtrack ; branch-and-bound ; constraint satisfaction problems ; frequent restarting
Abstract:Backtrack-style exhaustive search algorithms for NP-hard problems tend to have large variance in their runtime. This is because "fortunate" branching decisions can lead to finding a solution quickly, whereas "unfortunate" decisions in another run can lead the algorithm to a region of the search space with no solutions. In the literature, frequent restarting has been suggested as a means to overcome this problem. ; In this paper, we propose a more sophisticated approach: a best-first-search heuristic to quickly move between parts of the search space, always concentrating on the most promising region. We describe how this idea can be efficiently incorporated into a backtrack search algorithm, without sacrificing optimality. Moreover, we demonstrate empirically that, for hard solvable problem instances, the new approach provides significantly higher speed-up than frequent restarting.
Publisher:Zielona Góra: Uniwersytet Zielonogórski
Date: Resource Type: DOI: Pages: Source:AMCS, volume 24, number 4 (2014) ; click here to follow the link
Language: License CC BY 4.0: Rights: