Parallel Asynchronous Hungarian Methods for the Assignment Problem

In this paper we discuss the parallel asynchronous implementation of the Hungarian method for solving the classical assignment problem. Multiple augmentations and price rises are simultaneously attempted starting from several unassigned sources and using possibly outdated price and assignment information. The results are then merged asynchronously subject to rather weak compatibility conditions. We show the validity of this algorithm and we demonstrate computationally that an asynchronous implementation is often faster than its synchronous counterpart. 1 This work was supported in part by the BM/C3 Technology branch of the United States Army Strategic Defense Command. The authors would like to thank the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of the Argonne National Laboratory for providing access to the Advanced Computer Research Facility and training in the use of the Encore Multimax. 2 Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, M. I. T., Cambridge, Mass., 02139. 3 ALPHATECH, Inc., Burlington, Mass., 01803.