DRAGON: LLM-Driven Decomposition and Reconstruction Agents for Large-Scale Combinatorial Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Chen, Shengkai, Cao, Zhiguang, Zhou, Jianan, Wu, Yaoxin, Jayavelu, Senthilnath, Lin, Zhuoyi, Li, Xiaoli, Xiang, Shili
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Chen, Shengkai
Cao, Zhiguang
Zhou, Jianan
Wu, Yaoxin
Jayavelu, Senthilnath
Lin, Zhuoyi
Li, Xiaoli
Xiang, Shili
author_facet Chen, Shengkai
Cao, Zhiguang
Zhou, Jianan
Wu, Yaoxin
Jayavelu, Senthilnath
Lin, Zhuoyi
Li, Xiaoli
Xiang, Shili
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) have recently shown promise in addressing combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) through prompt-based strategies. However, their scalability and generalization remain limited, and their effectiveness diminishes as problem size increases, particularly in routing problems involving more than 30 nodes. We propose DRAGON, which stands for Decomposition and Reconstruction Agents Guided OptimizatioN, a novel framework that combines the strengths of metaheuristic design and LLM reasoning. Starting from an initial global solution, DRAGON autonomously identifies regions with high optimization potential and strategically decompose large-scale COPs into manageable subproblems. Each subproblem is then reformulated as a concise, localized optimization task and solved through targeted LLM prompting guided by accumulated experiences. Finally, the locally optimized solutions are systematically reintegrated into the original global context to yield a significantly improved overall outcome. By continuously interacting with the optimization environment and leveraging an adaptive experience memory, the agents iteratively learn from feedback, effectively coupling symbolic reasoning with heuristic search. Empirical results show that, unlike existing LLM-based solvers limited to small-scale instances, DRAGON consistently produces feasible solutions on TSPLIB, CVRPLIB, and Weibull-5k bin packing benchmarks, and achieves near-optimal results (0.16% gap) on knapsack problems with over 3M variables. This work shows the potential of feedback-driven language agents as a new paradigm for generalizable and interpretable large-scale optimization.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_06502
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle DRAGON: LLM-Driven Decomposition and Reconstruction Agents for Large-Scale Combinatorial Optimization
Chen, Shengkai
Cao, Zhiguang
Zhou, Jianan
Wu, Yaoxin
Jayavelu, Senthilnath
Lin, Zhuoyi
Li, Xiaoli
Xiang, Shili
Artificial Intelligence
Large Language Models (LLMs) have recently shown promise in addressing combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) through prompt-based strategies. However, their scalability and generalization remain limited, and their effectiveness diminishes as problem size increases, particularly in routing problems involving more than 30 nodes. We propose DRAGON, which stands for Decomposition and Reconstruction Agents Guided OptimizatioN, a novel framework that combines the strengths of metaheuristic design and LLM reasoning. Starting from an initial global solution, DRAGON autonomously identifies regions with high optimization potential and strategically decompose large-scale COPs into manageable subproblems. Each subproblem is then reformulated as a concise, localized optimization task and solved through targeted LLM prompting guided by accumulated experiences. Finally, the locally optimized solutions are systematically reintegrated into the original global context to yield a significantly improved overall outcome. By continuously interacting with the optimization environment and leveraging an adaptive experience memory, the agents iteratively learn from feedback, effectively coupling symbolic reasoning with heuristic search. Empirical results show that, unlike existing LLM-based solvers limited to small-scale instances, DRAGON consistently produces feasible solutions on TSPLIB, CVRPLIB, and Weibull-5k bin packing benchmarks, and achieves near-optimal results (0.16% gap) on knapsack problems with over 3M variables. This work shows the potential of feedback-driven language agents as a new paradigm for generalizable and interpretable large-scale optimization.
title DRAGON: LLM-Driven Decomposition and Reconstruction Agents for Large-Scale Combinatorial Optimization
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.06502