The Continuous p-Dispersion Problem in Three Dimensions

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Manoj, Sanjay, Ornik, Melkior
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Manoj, Sanjay
Ornik, Melkior
author_facet Manoj, Sanjay
Ornik, Melkior
contents The Continuous p-Dispersion Problem (CpDP) with boundary constraints asks for the placement of a fixed number of points in a compact subset of Euclidean space such that the minimum distance between any two points, as well as the points and the boundary of this compact set is maximized. This problem finds applications in facility placement, communication network design, sampling theory, and particle simulation; however, finding optimal solutions is NP-hard and existing algorithms focus on providing approximate solutions in two-dimensional space. In this paper, we introduce an almost-everywhere differentiable optimization model and global optimization algorithm for approximating solutions to the CpDP with boundary constraints in convex and non-convex polyhedra with respect to any metric in a three-dimensional Euclidean space. Our algorithm generalizes two-dimensional dispersion techniques to three dimensions by leveraging orientation, linear-algebraic projections for point-to-face distances, and a ray-casting procedure for point-in-polyhedron testing, enabling optimization in arbitrary convex and non-convex three dimensional polyhedra. We validate the proposed algorithm by comparing with analytical optima where available and empirical benchmarks, observing close agreement with optimal solutions and improvements over empirical benchmarks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_23548
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Continuous p-Dispersion Problem in Three Dimensions
Manoj, Sanjay
Ornik, Melkior
Optimization and Control
The Continuous p-Dispersion Problem (CpDP) with boundary constraints asks for the placement of a fixed number of points in a compact subset of Euclidean space such that the minimum distance between any two points, as well as the points and the boundary of this compact set is maximized. This problem finds applications in facility placement, communication network design, sampling theory, and particle simulation; however, finding optimal solutions is NP-hard and existing algorithms focus on providing approximate solutions in two-dimensional space. In this paper, we introduce an almost-everywhere differentiable optimization model and global optimization algorithm for approximating solutions to the CpDP with boundary constraints in convex and non-convex polyhedra with respect to any metric in a three-dimensional Euclidean space. Our algorithm generalizes two-dimensional dispersion techniques to three dimensions by leveraging orientation, linear-algebraic projections for point-to-face distances, and a ray-casting procedure for point-in-polyhedron testing, enabling optimization in arbitrary convex and non-convex three dimensional polyhedra. We validate the proposed algorithm by comparing with analytical optima where available and empirical benchmarks, observing close agreement with optimal solutions and improvements over empirical benchmarks.
title The Continuous p-Dispersion Problem in Three Dimensions
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23548