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Abstract

We study the problem of guarding the boundary of a simple polygon with a minimum number of guards such that each guard covers a contiguous portion of the boundary. First, we present a simple greedy algorithm for this problem that returns a guard set of size at most OPT + 1, where OPT is the number of guards in an optimal solution. Then, we present a polynomial-time exact algorithm. While the algorithm is not complicated, its correctness proof is rather involved. This result is interesting in the sense that guarding problems are typically NP-hard and, in particular, it is NP-hard to minimize the number of guards to see the boundary of a simple polygon, without the contiguous boundary guarding constraint. From the combinatorial point of view, we show that any \(n\)-vertex polygon can be guarded by at most \(\lfloor \frac{n-2}{2}\rfloor\) guards. This bound is tight because there are polygons that require this many guards.

Details

1009240
Identifier / keyword
Title
Contiguous Boundary Guarding
Publication title
arXiv.org; Ithaca
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Dec 19, 2024
Section
Computer Science
Publisher
Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
Source
arXiv.org
Place of publication
Ithaca
Country of publication
United States
University/institution
Cornell University Library arXiv.org
e-ISSN
2331-8422
Source type
Working Paper
Language of publication
English
Document type
Working Paper
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2024-12-20
Milestone dates
2024-12-19 (Submission v1)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
20 Dec 2024
ProQuest document ID
3147568759
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/working-papers/contiguous-boundary-guarding/docview/3147568759/se-2?accountid=208611
Full text outside of ProQuest
Copyright
© 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2025-01-14
Database
2 databases
  • ProQuest One Academic
  • ProQuest One Academic