A unified framework for symmetry handling

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: van Doornmalen, Jasper; Hojny, Christopher
• 署名单位: Eindhoven University of Technology
• 刊物名称: MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-5610
• DOI: 10.1007/s10107-024-02102-2
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 217-271
• 关键词: breaking constraints; packing; optimization

摘要

Handling symmetries in optimization problems is essential for devising efficient solution methods. In this article, we present a general framework that captures many of the already existing symmetry handling methods. While these methods are mostly discussed independently from each other, our framework allows to apply different methods simultaneously and thus outperforming their individual effect. Moreover, most existing symmetry handling methods only apply to binary variables. Our framework allows to easily generalize these methods to general variable types. Numerical experiments confirm that our novel framework is superior to the state-of-the-art symmetry handling methods as implemented in the solver SCIP on a broad set of instances.