Makespan Trade-offs for Visiting Triangle Edges

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the trade-offs in makespan for visiting triangle edges with 1 to 3 robots, providing bounds and optimal starting points within non-obtuse triangles.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for subdividing triangles based on optimal trajectories and quantifies makespan ratios for different fleet sizes.

Findings

Ranges of makespan ratios for different robot fleet sizes.

Identification of starting points maximizing these ratios.

Bounds on ratios over all non-obtuse triangles.

Abstract

We study a primitive vehicle routing-type problem in which a fleet of $n$unit speed robots start from a point within a non-obtuse triangle $\Delta$, where $n \in \{1,2,3\}$. The goal is to design robots' trajectories so as to visit all edges of the triangle with the smallest visitation time makespan. We begin our study by introducing a framework for subdividing $\Delta$into regions with respect to the type of optimal trajectory that each point $P$ admits, pertaining to the order that edges are visited and to how the cost of the minimum makespan $R_n(P)$ is determined, for $n\in \{1,2,3\}$. These subdivisions are the starting points for our main result, which is to study makespan trade-offs with respect to the size of the fleet. In particular, we define $ R_{n,m} (\Delta)= \max_{P \in \Delta} R_n(P)/R_m(P)$, and we prove that, over all non-obtuse triangles $\Delta$: (i) $R_{1,3}(\Delta)$ ranges from $\sqrt{10}$ to $4$, (ii) $R_{2,3}(\Delta)$ ranges from $\sqrt{2}$ to $2$, and (iii) $R_{1,2}(\Delta)$ ranges from $5/2$ to $3$. In every case, we pinpoint the starting points within every triangle $\Delta$ that maximize $R_{n,m} (\Delta)$, as well as we identify the triangles that determine all $\inf_\Delta R_{n,m}(\Delta)$ and $\sup_\Delta R_{n,m}(\Delta)$ over the set of non-obtuse triangles.