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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.21

An Empirical Analysis of Approximation Algorithms for the Unweighted Tree Augmentation Problem

Authors: Luke Hawranick, Matthew Williamson, Jacob Restanio, K. Subramani, and Cody Klingler

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 371, 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)

Abstract

In this paper, we perform an experimental study of approximation algorithms for the unweighted tree augmentation problem (UTAP). Our goal is to establish a baseline performance for several existing approximation algorithms on actual instances rather than worst-case instances. In particular, we are interested in whether the algorithms' performance in practical instances is consistent with their worst-case guarantee rankings. We are also interested in whether preprocessing times, implementation difficulties, and running times justify the use of an algorithm in practice. We profile and analyze three approximation algorithms from the literature against a simple randomized algorithm. The performance of each algorithm was evaluated using metrics for space usage, running time, and solution quality. We found that the simple randomized algorithm is very competitive with the approximation algorithms and that the algorithms do not necessarily rank according to their theoretical guarantees. The randomized algorithm is easier to implement and understand, using less space than any of the more sophisticated approximation algorithms.

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Luke Hawranick, Matthew Williamson, Jacob Restanio, K. Subramani, and Cody Klingler. An Empirical Analysis of Approximation Algorithms for the Unweighted Tree Augmentation Problem. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 21:1-21:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{hawranick_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.21,
  author =	{Hawranick, Luke and Williamson, Matthew and Restanio, Jacob and Subramani, K. and Klingler, Cody},
  title =	{{An Empirical Analysis of Approximation Algorithms for the Unweighted Tree Augmentation Problem}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{21:1--21:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-422-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{371},
  editor =	{Aum\"{u}ller, Martin and Finocchi, Irene},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.21},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260259},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.21},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graphs, Networks, Tree Augmentation, Approximation Algorithms, Empirical}
}

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An Empirical Analysis of Approximation Algorithms for the Unweighted Tree Augmentation Problem

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