Hybrid-Balance GFlowNet for Solving Vehicle Routing Problems

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Zhang, Ni, Cao, Zhiguang
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Zhang, Ni
Cao, Zhiguang
author_facet Zhang, Ni
Cao, Zhiguang
contents Existing GFlowNet-based methods for vehicle routing problems (VRPs) typically employ Trajectory Balance (TB) to achieve global optimization but often neglect important aspects of local optimization. While Detailed Balance (DB) addresses local optimization more effectively, it alone falls short in solving VRPs, which inherently require holistic trajectory optimization. To address these limitations, we introduce the Hybrid-Balance GFlowNet (HBG) framework, which uniquely integrates TB and DB in a principled and adaptive manner by aligning their intrinsically complementary strengths. Additionally, we propose a specialized inference strategy for depot-centric scenarios like the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP), leveraging the depot node's greater flexibility in selecting successors. Despite this specialization, HBG maintains broad applicability, extending effectively to problems without explicit depots, such as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). We evaluate HBG by integrating it into two established GFlowNet-based solvers, i.e., AGFN and GFACS, and demonstrate consistent and significant improvements across both CVRP and TSP, underscoring the enhanced solution quality and generalization afforded by our approach.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_04792
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hybrid-Balance GFlowNet for Solving Vehicle Routing Problems
Zhang, Ni
Cao, Zhiguang
Artificial Intelligence
Existing GFlowNet-based methods for vehicle routing problems (VRPs) typically employ Trajectory Balance (TB) to achieve global optimization but often neglect important aspects of local optimization. While Detailed Balance (DB) addresses local optimization more effectively, it alone falls short in solving VRPs, which inherently require holistic trajectory optimization. To address these limitations, we introduce the Hybrid-Balance GFlowNet (HBG) framework, which uniquely integrates TB and DB in a principled and adaptive manner by aligning their intrinsically complementary strengths. Additionally, we propose a specialized inference strategy for depot-centric scenarios like the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP), leveraging the depot node's greater flexibility in selecting successors. Despite this specialization, HBG maintains broad applicability, extending effectively to problems without explicit depots, such as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). We evaluate HBG by integrating it into two established GFlowNet-based solvers, i.e., AGFN and GFACS, and demonstrate consistent and significant improvements across both CVRP and TSP, underscoring the enhanced solution quality and generalization afforded by our approach.
title Hybrid-Balance GFlowNet for Solving Vehicle Routing Problems
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04792