The UTC Graduate School is pleased to announce that Eric Onyame will present Master’s research titled, COVERING PROBLEM WITH MINIMUM RADIUS ENCLOSING CIRCLE on 02/24/2023 at 2:00 pm-3:30pm in Lupton 393. Everyone is invited to attend.
Mathematics
Chair: DR.LAKMALI WEERASENA
Co-Chair:
Abstract:
This thesis proposes an extension to a classical problem in location science. The smallest enclosing circle problem finds the circle of minimum radius that encloses a given set of circles with known centers and radii. It has a wide range of applications across diverse areas. Now, suppose we are provided a set of demand points and some potential groups of those demand points. On the Euclidean plane, the subgroups are treated as circles. How do we identify an optimal number of subgroups to cover all demand points and a circle enclosing all selected subgroups with a minimum radius to build a communication hub for a healthcare system? The center of the minimum enclosing circle will be considered the location of the communication hub. We aim to minimize the distance between the demand points and the facilities subject to customers’ demand by finding this location. We develop a mathematical model to address this goal. Our model is a nonconvex-nonlinear optimization model. Thus, we propose an approximation algorithm based on a quadratic programming approach to solve this model. We test the algorithm’s effectiveness on diverse test problems including hypothetical and real test scenarios. The model supports reducing the total cost of the facility setup and also finding the best location for the communication hub