Approximation Schemes for Minimum 2-Connected Spanning Subgraphs in Weighted Planar Graphs [chapter]

André Berger, Artur Czumaj, Michelangelo Grigni, Hairong Zhao
2005 Lecture Notes in Computer Science  
We present new approximation schemes for various classical problems of finding the minimum-weight spanning subgraph in edge-weighted undirected planar graphs that are resistant to edge or vertex removal. We first give a PTAS for the problem of finding minimum-weight 2-edge-connected spanning subgraphs where duplicate edges are allowed. Then we present a new greedy spanner construction for edge-weighted planar graphs, which augments any connected subgraph A of a weighted planar graph G to a (1 +
more » ... ε)-spanner of G with total weight bounded by weight(A)/ε. From this we derive quasi-polynomial time approximation schemes for the problems of finding the minimum-weight 2-edge-connected or biconnected spanning subgraph in planar graphs. We also design approximation schemes for the minimum-weight 1-2-connectivity problem, which is the variant of the survivable network design problem where vertices have non-uniform (1 or 2) connectivity constraints. Prior to our work, for all these problems no polynomial or quasi-polynomial time algorithms were known to achieve an approximation ratio better than 2.
doi:10.1007/11561071_43 fatcat:m565l4ypivaafiuyt6vvzq5goe