Solving the knapsack problem via Z-transform

  • Authors:
  • Jean B. Lasserre;Eduardo S. Zeron

  • Affiliations:
  • LAAS-CNRS, 7 Avenue Du Colonel Roche, 31077 Toulouse Cédex 4, France;Depto. Matemáticas, CINVESTAV-IPN, Apdo. Postal 14-740, Mexico D.F. 07000, Mexico

  • Venue:
  • Operations Research Letters
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

Given vectors a,c@?Z^n and b@?Z, we consider the (unbounded) knapsack optimization problem P:min{c'x|a'x=b;x@?N^n}. We compute the minimum value p^* using techniques from complex analysis, namely Cauchy's Residue Theorem to integrate a function in C^2, and the Z-transform of an appropriate function related to P. The computational complexity depends on s@?@?"j"="1^na"j, not on the magnitude of b as in dynamic programming based approaches. We also completely characterize the number of solutions with value less than p, as a function of p.