Fields of Activity

Algorithm engineering includes the design, the theoretical analysis, the implementation, and experimental evaluation of algorithms. This new field intends to bridge the gap between the efficient algorithms developed in algorithmic theory and the algorithms used by practitioners.

In this context, the research interests of our group focuses on algorithms, data structures, and combinatorial optimization, in particularly, for NP-hard optimization problems. The methods we use are based on exact methods like branch-and-bound, branch-and-cut, integer linear programming, polyhedral combinatorics, and graph theory on one side and heuristic techniques like local-search-based methods and evolutionary algorithms on the other.

Algorithm engineering requires thorough experimentation and evaluation of our new heuristics and exact algorithms for real problems. We have experience with a variety of applications such as graph layout problems, bioinformatics, and logistic problems such as network design.

The chair has been founded in 1985 as Chair for System Analysis headed by Professor Dr. Hans-Paul Schwefel. In 2004, Professor Dr. Petra Mutzel was appointed his successor in the field of Algorithm Engineering / Experimental Algorithms. Since 2005, Professor Dr. Günter Rudolph joined the team.