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A metaheuristic framework for Nonlinear Capacitated Covering Problems

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Abstract

Several relevant optimization problems can be formulated as generalizations of Capacitated Covering Problems, by considering a cost function that combines a linear term with a nonlinear one. In this paper we introduce the Staircase Capacitated Covering Problem, where the nonlinear term has a staircase shape, and we propose a framework based on a Metaheuristic algorithm for solving problems having this formulation. The performance of the Metaheuristic algorithm in solving the Staircase Capacitated Covering Problem is evaluated on a set of instances derived from an industrial application, and it is compared with a linearized formulation of the problem solved by CPLEX. In particular, the experiments show that the former produces better solutions in the same computing time.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to two anonymous referees for their careful reading and useful comments, which helped very much in improving the paper. Rosa Medina Duràn was partially supported by project FONDECYT 11140244 and Complex Engineering Systems Institute (ICM: P-05-004-F, CONICYT: FBO16)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DEI, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136, Bologna, Italy

    Enrico Malaguti & Paolo Toth

  2. Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile

    Rosa Medina Durán

Authors
  1. Enrico Malaguti
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  2. Rosa Medina Durán
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  3. Paolo Toth
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Correspondence to Enrico Malaguti.

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Malaguti, E., Durán, R.M. & Toth, P. A metaheuristic framework for Nonlinear Capacitated Covering Problems. Optim Lett 10, 169–180 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-015-0913-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-015-0913-4

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