Karmarkar–Karp bin packing algorithms

The Karmarkar-Karp bin packing algorithm is an approximation algorithm for the bin packing problem.^[1] The bin packing problem is a problem of packing items of different sizes into bins of identical capacity, such that the total number of bins is as small as possible. Finding the optimal solution is computationally hard. Karmarkar and Karp devised an algorithm that runs in polynomial time and finds a solution with at most $\mathrm {OPT} +{\mathcal {O}}(\log ^{2}(OPT))$ bins, where OPT is the number of bins in the optimal solution.

Their algorithm was considered a breakthrough in the study of bin packing: the previously-known algorithms found multiplicative approximation, where the number of bins was at most $r\cdot \mathrm {OPT} +s$ for some constants $r>1,s>0$ , or at most $(1+\varepsilon )\mathrm {OPT} +1$ .^[2]

Their techniques were improved later, to provide even better approximations: an algorithm by Rothvoss^[3] uses at most $\mathrm {OPT} +O(\log(\mathrm {OPT} )\cdot \log \log(\mathrm {OPT} ))$ bins, and an algorithm by Hoberg and Rothvoss^[4] uses at most $\mathrm {OPT} +O(\log(\mathrm {OPT} ))$ bins.

References

^ Karmarkar, Narendra; Karp, Richard M. (November 1982). "An efficient approximation scheme for the one-dimensional bin-packing problem". 23rd Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (SFCS 1982): 312–320. doi:10.1109/SFCS.1982.61. S2CID 18583908.
^ Fernandez de la Vega, W.; Lueker, G. S. (1981). "Bin packing can be solved within 1 + ε in linear time". Combinatorica. 1 (4): 349–355. doi:10.1007/BF02579456. ISSN 1439-6912. S2CID 10519631.
^ Rothvoß, T. (2013-10-01). "Approximating Bin Packing within O(log OPT * Log Log OPT) Bins". 2013 IEEE 54th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science: 20–29. arXiv:1301.4010. doi:10.1109/FOCS.2013.11. ISBN 978-0-7695-5135-7. S2CID 15905063.
^ Hoberg, Rebecca; Rothvoss, Thomas (2017-01-01), "A Logarithmic Additive Integrality Gap for Bin Packing", Proceedings of the 2017 Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, Proceedings, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, pp. 2616–2625, doi:10.1137/1.9781611974782.172, ISBN 978-1-61197-478-2, S2CID 1647463, retrieved 2021-02-10

[:12-1] Karmarkar, Narendra; Karp, Richard M. (November 1982). "An efficient approximation scheme for the one-dimensional bin-packing problem". 23rd Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (SFCS 1982): 312–320. doi:10.1109/SFCS.1982.61. S2CID 18583908.

[2] Fernandez de la Vega, W.; Lueker, G. S. (1981). "Bin packing can be solved within 1 + ε in linear time". Combinatorica. 1 (4): 349–355. doi:10.1007/BF02579456. ISSN 1439-6912. S2CID 10519631.

[:2-3] Rothvoß, T. (2013-10-01). "Approximating Bin Packing within O(log OPT * Log Log OPT) Bins". 2013 IEEE 54th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science: 20–29. arXiv:1301.4010. doi:10.1109/FOCS.2013.11. ISBN 978-0-7695-5135-7. S2CID 15905063.

[:3-4] Hoberg, Rebecca; Rothvoss, Thomas (2017-01-01), "A Logarithmic Additive Integrality Gap for Bin Packing", Proceedings of the 2017 Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, Proceedings, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, pp. 2616–2625, doi:10.1137/1.9781611974782.172, ISBN 978-1-61197-478-2, S2CID 1647463, retrieved 2021-02-10

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