Efficient minimum cost matching using quadrangle inequality

Abstract

The authors present efficient algorithms for finding a minimum cost perfect matching, and for solving the transportation problem in bipartite graphs, G = (Red union Blue, Red ∗ Blue), where mod Red mod = n, mod Blue mod = m, n <or= m, and the cost function obeys the quadrangle inequality. The first results assume that all the red points and all the blue points lie on a curve that is homeomorphic to either a line or a circle and the cost function is given by the Euclidean distance along the curve. They present a linear time algorithm for the matching problem. They generalize the method to solve the corresponding transportation problem in O((m+n)log(m+n)) time. The next result is an O(n log m) algorithm for minimum cost matching when the cost array is a bitonic Monge array. An example of this is when the red points lie on one straight line and the blue points lie on another straight line (that is not necessarily parallel to the first one). Finally, they provide a weakly polynomial algorithm for the transportation problem in which the associated cost array is a bitonic Monge array.