Approximation algorithms for integer programming with resource augmentation

TL;DR

This paper introduces approximation algorithms for integer programming that trade off solution accuracy for faster computation, providing near-feasible solutions with controlled constraint violations and applications to knapsack and scheduling problems.

Contribution

It presents the first algorithms achieving near-feasible solutions with a tunable approximation parameter for general and n-fold integer programs.

Findings

Algorithms run in fixed-parameter tractable time depending on the approximation parameter.

Solutions violate constraints by at most bcb4b4, with objective values close to optimal.

Applicable to multidimensional knapsack and scheduling problems.

Abstract

The classic algorithm [Papadimitriou, J.ACM '81] for IPs has a running time $n^{O(m)}(m\cdot\max\{\Delta,\|\textbf{b}\|_{\infty}\})^{O(m^2)}$, where $m$ is the number of constraints, $n$ is the number of variables, and $\Delta$ and $\|\textbf{b}\|_{\infty}$ are, respectively, the largest absolute values among the entries in the constraint matrix and the right-hand side vector of the constraint. The running time is exponential in $m$, and becomes pseudo-polynomial if $m$ is a constant. In recent years, there has been extensive research on FPT (fixed parameter tractable) algorithms for the so-called $n$-fold IPs, which may possess a large number of constraints, but the constraint matrix satisfies a specific block structure. It is remarkable that these FPT algorithms take as parameters $\Delta$ and the number of rows and columns of some small submatrices. If $\Delta$ is not treated as a parameter, then the running time becomes pseudo-polynomial even if all the other parameters are taken as constants. This paper explores the trade-off between time and accuracy in solving an IP. We show that, for arbitrary small $\varepsilon>0$, there exists an algorithm for IPs with $m$ constraints that runs in ${f(m,\varepsilon)}\cdot\textnormal{poly}(|I|)$ time, and returns a near-feasible solution that violates the constraints by at most $\varepsilon\Delta$. Furthermore, for $n$-fold IPs, we establish a similar result -- our algorithm runs in time that depends on the number of rows and columns of small submatrices together with $1/\varepsilon$, and returns a solution that slightly violates the constraints. Meanwhile, both solutions guarantee that their objective values are no worse than the corresponding optimal objective values satisfying the constraints. As applications, our results can be used to obtain additive approximation schemes for multidimensional knapsack as well as scheduling.