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Neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) has gained significant attention due to the potential of deep learning to efficiently solve combinatorial optimization problems. NCO has been widely applied to job shop scheduling problems (JSPs) with…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-12-19 Igor G. Smit , Yaoxin Wu , Pavel Troubil , Yingqian Zhang , Wim P. M. Nuijten

Neural Combinatorial Optimisation (NCO) is a promising learning-based approach for solving Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) without extensive manual design. While existing constructive NCO methods typically follow an appending-based paradigm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-31 Fu Luo , Xi Lin , Mengyuan Zhong , Fei Liu , Zhenkun Wang , Jianyong Sun , Qingfu Zhang

The neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) method has shown great potential for solving routing problems of intelligent transportation systems without requiring expert knowledge. However, existing constructive NCO methods still struggle to…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Changliang Zhou , Xi Lin , Zhenkun Wang , Xialiang Tong , Mingxuan Yuan , Qingfu Zhang

Relevant combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) are often NP-hard. While they have been tackled mainly via handcrafted heuristics in the past, advances in neural networks have motivated the development of general methods to learn…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-05 Tim Dernedde , Daniela Thyssens , Sören Dittrich , Maximilian Stubbemann , Lars Schmidt-Thieme

Deep neural networks based on reinforcement learning (RL) for solving combinatorial optimization (CO) problems are developing rapidly and have shown a tendency to approach or even outperform traditional solvers. However, existing methods…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-24 Chaoyang Wang , Pengzhi Cheng , Jingze Li , Weiwei Sun

Finding a feasible and prompt solution to the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a prerequisite for efficient freight transportation, seamless logistics, and sustainable mobility. Traditional optimization methods reach their limits when…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-08 Elija Deineko , Carina Kehrt

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-23 Ruben Solozabal , Josu Ceberio , Martin Takáč

Combinatorial optimization serves as an essential part in many modern industrial applications. A great number of the problems are offline setting due to safety and/or cost issues. While simulation-based approaches appear difficult to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-21 Wenpeng Wei , Toshiko Aizono

Combinatorial optimization (CO) problems, central to decision-making scenarios like logistics and manufacturing, are traditionally solved using problem-specific algorithms requiring significant domain expertise. While large language models…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-09-24 Xia Jiang , Yaoxin Wu , Minshuo Li , Zhiguang Cao , Yingqian Zhang

Combinatorial Optimization (CO) has been a long-standing challenging research topic featured by its NP-hard nature. Traditionally such problems are approximately solved with heuristic algorithms which are usually fast but may sacrifice the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-26 Runzhong Wang , Zhigang Hua , Gan Liu , Jiayi Zhang , Junchi Yan , Feng Qi , Shuang Yang , Jun Zhou , Xiaokang Yang

Using machine learning to solve combinatorial optimization (CO) problems is challenging, especially when the data is unlabeled. This work proposes an unsupervised learning framework for CO problems. Our framework follows a standard…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-25 Haoyu Wang , Nan Wu , Hang Yang , Cong Hao , Pan Li

Neural Combinatorial Optimization approaches have recently leveraged the expressiveness and flexibility of deep neural networks to learn efficient heuristics for hard Combinatorial Optimization (CO) problems. However, most of the current…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-04 Sahil Manchanda , Sofia Michel , Darko Drakulic , Jean-Marc Andreoli

Symbolic regression (SR) aims to discover mathematical expressions from data, a task traditionally tackled using Genetic Programming (GP) through combinatorial search over symbolic structures. Latent Space Optimization (LSO) methods use…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2026-04-14 Benjamin Léger , Kazem Meidani , Christian Gagné

Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NCO) has emerged as a promising approach for NP-hard problems. However, prevailing RL-based methods suffer from low sample efficiency due to sparse rewards and underused solutions. We propose Best-anchored…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-03 Zijun Liao , Jinbiao Chen , Debing Wang , Zizhen Zhang , Jiahai Wang

In neural combinatorial optimization (CO), reinforcement learning (RL) can turn a deep neural net into a fast, powerful heuristic solver of NP-hard problems. This approach has a great potential in practical applications because it allows…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-14 Yeong-Dae Kwon , Jinho Choo , Byoungjip Kim , Iljoo Yoon , Youngjune Gwon , Seungjai Min

Although several surveys on Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NCO) solvers specifically designed to solve Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) have been conducted, they did not cover the state-of-the-art (SOTA) NCO solvers emerged recently.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-04-28 Xuan Wu , Di Wang , Lijie Wen , Yubin Xiao , Chunguo Wu , Yuesong Wu , Chaoyu Yu , Douglas L. Maskell , You Zhou

Solving NP-hard/complete combinatorial problems with neural networks is a challenging research area that aims to surpass classical approximate algorithms. The long-term objective is to outperform hand-designed heuristics for…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2024-02-14 Dobrik Georgiev , Danilo Numeroso , Davide Bacciu , Pietro Liò

Recent advances in graph neural network architectures and increased computation power have revolutionized the field of combinatorial optimization (CO). Among the proposed models for CO problems, Neural Improvement (NI) models have been…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-10-10 Andoni I. Garmendia , Josu Ceberio , Alexander Mendiburu

This paper introduces a new deep learning approach to approximately solve the Covering Salesman Problem (CSP). In this approach, given the city locations of a CSP as input, a deep neural network model is designed to directly output the…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2021-09-15 Kaiwen Li , Tao Zhang , Rui Wang Yuheng Wang , Yi Han

Collaborative learning is an important tool to train multiple clients more effectively by enabling communication among clients. Identifying helpful clients, however, presents challenging and often introduces significant overhead. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-10 Diba Hashemi , Lie He , Martin Jaggi