Covering points by unit disks of fixed location

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

    69 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Given a set P of points in the plane, and a set D of unit disks of fixed location, the discrete unit disk cover problem is to find a minimum-cardinality subset D′ ⊆ D that covers all points of P. This problem is a geometric version of the general set cover problem, where the sets are defined by a collection of unit disks. It is still NP-hard, but while the general set cover problem is not approximate within clog |P|, for some constant c, the discrete unit disk cover problem was shown to admit a constant-factor approximation. Due to its many important applications, e.g., in wireless network design, much effort has been invested in trying to reduce the constant of approximation of the discrete unit disk cover problem. In this paper we significantly improve the best known constant from 72 to 38, using a novel approach. Our solution is based on a 4-approximation that we devise for the subproblem where the points of V are located below a line l and contained in the subset of disks of D centered above l. This problem is of independent interest.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationAlgorithms and Computation - 18th International Symposium, ISAAC 2007, Proceedings
    PublisherSpringer Verlag
    Pages644-655
    Number of pages12
    ISBN (Print)9783540771180
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 1 Jan 2007
    Event18th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation, ISAAC 2007 - Sendai, Japan
    Duration: 17 Dec 200719 Dec 2007

    Publication series

    NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
    Volume4835 LNCS
    ISSN (Print)0302-9743
    ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

    Conference

    Conference18th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation, ISAAC 2007
    Country/TerritoryJapan
    CitySendai
    Period17/12/0719/12/07

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Theoretical Computer Science
    • General Computer Science

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