Unified Branch-and-Bound Search for the Steiner Traveling Salesman Problem on Graphs of Convex Sets

2026-08-21

AI Summary

该研究通过统一的分支定界搜索方法解决图上凸集的Steiner旅行商问题，有效探索无限解空间并找到近似最优解。

Abstract

We formalize the Steiner Traveling Salesman Problem (Steiner-TSP) on Graphs of Convex Sets (GCS), which seeks a minimum-cost closed trajectory through required convex sets while allowing optional transit vertices and revisits. To explore the resulting infinite solution space, we propose a unified branch-and-bound search over rooted walk prefixes. Additive lower-bound-graph costs bound committed prefixes, while a cut-separated connected-flow relaxation lower-bounds the residual cost of visiting every remaining target and returning to the root. Under a uniform positive-cost assumption, best-first traversal terminates after finitely many expansions on every feasible instance without an initial incumbent, whereas depth-first traversal does so once a finite incumbent is available. For a user-specified factor $ε\geq1$, a global lower bound certifies that either strategy's incumbent cost is at most $ε$ times the global optimum. We further demonstrate joint sensing-mode, visitation-order, and continuous-trajectory selection for a mobile-manipulator inspection task, including action precedences expressed in linear temporal logic over finite traces (LTL$_f$). Both traversal strategies find feasible solutions on all benchmark instances within 30s with mean certified optimality gaps of 28.1% and 29.7%, respectively, whereas two recent baselines succeed on only about half of the instances

Problem

• Steiner Traveling Salesman Problem
• Graphs of Convex Sets
• Minimum-cost Closed Trajectory

Innovation

• branch-and-bound search
• graphs of convex sets
• Steiner traveling salesman problem
• cut-separated connected-flow relaxation
• mobile-manipulator inspection