Related papers: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Exact Combinatoria…
Combinatorial optimisation problems framed as mixed integer linear programmes (MILPs) are ubiquitous across a range of real-world applications. The canonical branch-and-bound algorithm seeks to exactly solve MILPs by constructing a search…
Most combinatorial optimization problems can be formulated as mixed integer linear programming (MILP), in which branch-and-bound (B\&B) is a general and widely used method. Recently, learning to branch has become a hot research topic in the…
A big challenge in branch and bound lies in identifying the optimal node within the search tree from which to proceed. Current state-of-the-art selectors utilize either hand-crafted ensembles that automatically switch between naive sub-node…
Many traditional algorithms for solving combinatorial optimization problems involve using hand-crafted heuristics that sequentially construct a solution. Such heuristics are designed by domain experts and may often be suboptimal due to the…
Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) lies at the core of many real-world combinatorial optimization (CO) problems, traditionally solved by branch-and-bound (B&B). A key driver influencing B&B solvers efficiency is the variable selection…
Combinatorial optimization problems are typically tackled by the branch-and-bound paradigm. We propose a new graph convolutional neural network model for learning branch-and-bound variable selection policies, which leverages the natural…
Mixed integer linear programs are commonly solved by Branch and Bound algorithms. A key factor of the efficiency of the most successful commercial solvers is their fine-tuned heuristics. In this paper, we leverage patterns in real-world…
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…
Recent advances in deep learning have shown significant potential for solving combinatorial optimization problems in real-time. Unlike traditional methods, deep learning can generate high-quality solutions efficiently, which is crucial for…
Branch-and-bound is a typical way to solve combinatorial optimization problems. This paper proposes a graph pointer network model for learning the variable selection policy in the branch-and-bound. We extract the graph features, global…
This paper presents a framework to tackle constrained combinatorial optimization problems using deep Reinforcement Learning (RL). To this end, we extend the Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NCO) theory in order to deal with constraints in…
Many real-world problems can be reduced to combinatorial optimization on a graph, where the subset or ordering of vertices that maximize some objective function must be found. With such tasks often NP-hard and analytically intractable,…
The Branch-and-bound (B&B) algorithm is the main solver for Mixed Integer Linear Programs (MILPs), where the selection of branching variable is essential to computational efficiency. However, traditional heuristics for branching often fail…
Training a deep neural network to maximize a target objective has become the standard recipe for successful machine learning over the last decade. These networks can be optimized with supervised learning, if the target objective is…
Reinforcement learning (RL) is a branch of machine learning which is employed to solve various sequential decision making problems without proper supervision. Due to the recent advancement of deep learning, the newly proposed Deep-RL…
This paper gives a detailed review of reinforcement learning (RL) in combinatorial optimization, introduces the history of combinatorial optimization starting in the 1950s, and compares it with the RL algorithms of recent years. This paper…
Deriving a good variable selection strategy in branch-and-bound is essential for the efficiency of modern mixed-integer programming (MIP) solvers. With MIP branching data collected during the previous solution process, learning to branch…
A convenient approach to optimally solving combinatorial optimization tasks is the Branch-and-Bound method. Its branching heuristic can be learned to solve a large set of similar tasks. The promising results here are achieved by the…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has emerged as a powerful paradigm in Artificial Intelligence (AI), enabling agents to learn optimal behaviors through interactions with their environments. Drawing from the foundations of trial and error, RL…
Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has been used to learn effective heuristics for solving complex combinatorial optimisation problem via policy networks and have demonstrated promising performance. Existing works have focused on solving…