A Branch-and-Price Approach for Variable Radius Covering Problem

We present an exact algorithm for the variable radius covering problem (VRCP). The VRCP frequently appears in many applications, including telecommunication, transportations, and logistics. The specific variant considered in this paper allows deploying facilities with different radii on continuous locations. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear programming problem, and we propose a branch-and-price approach for solving the problem. The developed algorithm utilizes an efficient column generation subproblem designed explicitly for the problem. We report the results of the computational study that show the proposed approach outperforms the previous algorithms.