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Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NCO) has emerged as a promising learning-based paradigm for addressing Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) by minimizing the need for extensive manual engineering. While existing NCO methods, trained on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-24 Yuanyao Chen , Rongsheng Chen , Fu Luo , Zhenkun Wang

Since the 1990s, considerable empirical work has been carried out to train statistical models, such as neural networks (NNs), as learned heuristics for combinatorial optimization (CO) problems. When successful, such an approach eliminates…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-01-21 Orit Davidovich , Shimrit Shtern , Segev Wasserkrug , Nimrod Megiddo

Existing approaches to solving combinatorial optimization problems on graphs suffer from the need to engineer each problem algorithmically, with practical problems recurring in many instances. The practical side of theoretical computer…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-15 Natalia Vesselinova , Rebecca Steinert , Daniel F. Perez-Ramirez , Magnus Boman

In this paper, we develop a unified machine learning (ML) approach to predict high-quality solutions for single-machine scheduling problems with a non-decreasing min-sum objective function with or without release times. Our ML approach is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-09 Anbang Liu , Zhi-Long Chen , Jinyang Jiang , Xi Chen

We propose a multi-time-scale predictive representation learning method to efficiently learn robust driving policies in an offline manner that generalize well to novel road geometries, and damaged and distracting lane conditions which are…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-03-16 Daniel Graves , Nhat M. Nguyen , Kimia Hassanzadeh , Jun Jin , Jun Luo

The goal of an offline reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm is to learn optimal polices using historical (offline) data, without access to the environment for online exploration. One of the main challenges in offline RL is the distribution…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-31 Kishan Panaganti , Zaiyan Xu , Dileep Kalathil , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh

Job shop scheduling problems represent a significant and complex facet of combinatorial optimization problems, which have traditionally been addressed through either exact or approximate solution methodologies. However, the practical…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-03-19 Jaejin Lee , Seho Kee , Mani Janakiram , George Runger

The combination of exponentially large action spaces, stochastic dynamics, and long-horizon decision-making under limited resources makes Sequential Stochastic Combinatorial Optimization (SSCO) particularly challenging for reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Vivienne Huiling Wang , Tinghuai Wang , Joni Pajarinen

This paper presents a framework to tackle combinatorial optimization problems using neural networks and reinforcement learning. We focus on the traveling salesman problem (TSP) and train a recurrent network that, given a set of city…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2017-01-16 Irwan Bello , Hieu Pham , Quoc V. Le , Mohammad Norouzi , Samy Bengio

In distributed optimization, the practical problem-solving performance is essentially sensitive to algorithm selection, parameter setting, problem type and data pattern. Thus, it is often laborious to acquire a highly efficient method for a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-04 Daokuan Zhu , Tianqi Xu , Jie Lu

Recently, the applications of the methodologies of Reinforcement Learning (RL) to NP-Hard Combinatorial optimization problems have become a popular topic. This is essentially due to the nature of the traditional combinatorial algorithms,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-02 Simone Foa , Corrado Coppola , Giorgio Grani , Laura Palagi

This paper investigates a hybrid learning framework for reinforcement learning (RL) in which the agent can leverage both an offline dataset and online interactions to learn the optimal policy. We present a unified algorithm and analysis and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-01 Ruiquan Huang , Donghao Li , Chengshuai Shi , Cong Shen , Jing Yang

Online matching problems arise in many complex systems, from cloud services and online marketplaces to organ exchange networks, where timely, principled decisions are critical for maintaining high system performance. Traditional heuristics…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-09 Chiara Mignacco , Matthieu Jonckheere , Gilles Stoltz

Combinatorial optimization (CO) problems arise across a broad spectrum of domains, including medicine, logistics, and manufacturing. While exact solutions are often computationally infeasible, many practical applications require…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-27 Arman Mielke , Uwe Bauknecht , Thilo Strauss , Mathias Niepert

There hardly exists a general solver that is efficient for scheduling problems due to their diversity and complexity. In this study, we develop a two-stage framework, in which reinforcement learning (RL) and traditional operations research…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-03-11 Yongming He , Guohua Wu , Yingwu Chen , Witold Pedrycz

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is one of the most intensively studied combinatorial optimisation problems for which numerous models and algorithms have been proposed. To tackle the complexities, uncertainties and dynamics involved in…

This study addresses the challenge of online learning in contexts where agents accumulate disparate data, face resource constraints, and use different local algorithms. This paper introduces the Switched Online Learning Algorithm (SOLA),…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-12 Darshan Gadginmath , Shivanshu Tripathi , Fabio Pasqualetti

In this paper, we evaluate the use of Reinforcement Learning (RL) to solve a classic combinatorial optimization problem: the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). We formalize this problem in the RL framework and compare two of the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-01-17 Leo Ardon

In practice, it is quite common to face combinatorial optimization problems which contain uncertainty along with non-determinism and dynamicity. These three properties call for appropriate algorithms; reinforcement learning (RL) is dealing…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-11-10 Nathan Grinsztajn , Olivier Beaumont , Emmanuel Jeannot , Philippe Preux

We propose a general method for combinatorial online learning problems whose offline optimization problem can be solved efficiently via a dynamic programming algorithm defined by an arbitrary min-sum recurrence. Examples include online…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-10 Holakou Rahmanian , Manfred K. Warmuth , S. V. N. Vishwanathan