Approximation Algorithms for the Capacitated Domination Problem

We consider the

Capacitated Domination

problem, which models a service-requirement assignment scenario and is a generalization to the well-known

Dominating Set

problem. In this problem, given a graph with three parameters defined on each vertex, namely cost, capacity, and demand, we want to find an assignment of demands to vertices of least cost such that the demand of each vertex is satisfied subject to the capacity constraint of each vertex providing the service.

In terms of polynomial time approximations, we present logarithmic approximation algorithms with respect to different demand assignment models on general graphs. On the other hand, from the perspective of parameterization, we prove that this problem is

W[1]

-hard when parameterized by a structure of the graph called treewidth. Based on this hardness result, we present exact fixed-parameter tractable algorithms with respect to treewidth and maximum capacity of the vertices. This algorithm is further extended to obtain pseudo-polynomial time approximation schemes for planar graphs.