Packing Unit Disks

dc.comment.hiddenThis is the digital copy of my thesis. I also have a print copy, which leaves blank pages so that each chapter starts on the right side of a double page, and the margins are changed slightly to add extra gutter space (to accomodate the binding).en
dc.contributor.authorLafreniere, Benjamin J.
dc.date.accessioned2008-08-27T19:19:50Z
dc.date.available2008-08-27T19:19:50Z
dc.date.issued2008-08-27T19:19:50Z
dc.date.submitted2008
dc.description.abstractGiven a set of unit disks in the plane with union area A, what fraction of A can be covered by selecting a pairwise disjoint subset of the disks? Richard Rado conjectured 1/4 and proved 1/4.41. In this thesis, we consider a variant of this problem where the disjointness constraint is relaxed: selected disks must be k-colourable with disks of the same colour pairwise-disjoint. Rado's problem is then the case where k = 1, and we focus our investigations on what can be proven for k > 1. Motivated by the problem of channel-assignment for Wi-Fi wireless access points, in which the use of 3 or fewer channels is a standard practice, we show that for k = 3 we can cover at least 1/2.09 and for k = 2 we can cover at least 1/2.82. We present a randomized algorithm to select and colour a subset of n disks to achieve these bounds in O(n) expected time. To achieve the weaker bounds of 1/2.77 for k = 3 and 1/3.37 for k = 2 we present a deterministic O(n^2) time algorithm. We also look at what bounds can be proven for arbitrary k, presenting two different methods of deriving bounds for any given k and comparing their performance. One of our methods is an extension of the method used to prove bounds for k = 2 and k = 3 above, while the other method takes a novel approach. Rado's proof is constructive, and uses a regular lattice positioned over the given set of disks to guide disk selection. Our proofs are also constructive and extend this idea: we use a k-coloured regular lattice to guide both disk selection and colouring. The complexity of implementing many of the constructions used in our proofs is dominated by a lattice positioning step. As such, we discuss the algorithmic issues involved in positioning lattices as required by each of our proofs. In particular, we show that a required lattice positioning step used in the deterministic O(n^2) algorithm mentioned above is 3SUM-hard, providing evidence that this algorithm is optimal among algorithms employing such a lattice positioning approach. We also present evidence that a similar lattice positioning step used in the constructions for our better bounds for k = 2 and k = 3 may not have an efficient exact implementation.en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/3907
dc.language.isoenen
dc.pendingfalseen
dc.publisherUniversity of Waterlooen
dc.subjectcomputational geometryen
dc.subjectdisk packingen
dc.subjectcoveringen
dc.subjectcolouringen
dc.subjectmaximum independent seten
dc.subjectlower boundsen
dc.subjectdiscrete geometryen
dc.subjectalgorithmsen
dc.subjectcomplexityen
dc.subjectdisk intersection graphsen
dc.subject.programComputer Scienceen
dc.titlePacking Unit Disksen
dc.typeMaster Thesisen
uws-etd.degreeMaster of Mathematicsen
uws-etd.degree.departmentSchool of Computer Scienceen
uws.peerReviewStatusUnrevieweden
uws.scholarLevelGraduateen
uws.typeOfResourceTexten

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