Polynomial Time Algorithms

for the N-Queen Problem

Rok sosic and Jun Gu

Outline
 N-Queen Problem
 Previous Works
 Probabilistic Local Search Algorithms
 QS1, QS2, QS3 and QS4
 Results
N-Queen Problem
 A classical combinatorial problem
 n x n chess board
 n queens on the same board
 Queen attacks other at the same row, column
or diagonal line
 No 2 queens attack each other
A Solution for 6-Queen
Previous Works
 Analytical solution
 Direct computation, very fast
 Generate only a very restricted class of
solutions
 Backtracking Search
 Generate all possible solutions
 Exponential time complexity
 Can only solve for n<100
QS1
 Data Structure
 The i-th queen is placed at row i and column queen[i]
 1 queen per row
 The array queen must contain a permutation of
integers {1,…,n}
 1 queen per column

 2 arrays, dn and dp, of size 2n-1 keep track of number

of queen on negative and positive diagonal lines
 The i-th queen is counted at dn[i+queen[i]] and

dp[i-queen[i]]
 Problem remains
 Resolve any collision on the diagonal lines
QS1
 Pseudo-code
QS1
 Gradient-Based Heuristic
QS2
 Data Structure
 Queen placement same as QS1
 An array attack is maintained
 Store the row indexes of queens that are under
attack
QS2
 Pseudo-code
QS2

Go through the
attacking queen only

Reduce cost of bookeeping

C2=32 to maximize the speed for

small N, no effect on large N
QS3
 Improvement on QS2
 Random permutation generates
approximately 0.53n collisions
 Conflict-free initialization
 The position of a new queen is randomly
generated until a conflict-free place is found
 After a certain of queens, m, the remaining c
queens are placed randomly regardless of
conflicts
QS4
 Algorithm same as QS1
 Initialization same as QS4
 The fastest algorithm
 3,000,000 queens in less than one minute
Results – Statistics of QS1
Collisions for random permutation

Max no. and min no. of queens on the most populated diagonal
in a random permutation

Permutation Statistics

Swap Statistics
Results – Statistics of QS2
Permutation Statistics

Swap Statistics
Results – Statistics of QS3
Swap Statistics

Number of conflict-free queens during initialization

Results – Time Complexity
Results – Time Complexity
Results – Time Complexity
Results – Time Complexity
Results – Time Complexity
References
 R. Sosic, and J. Gu, “A polynomial time
algorithm for the n-queens problem,” SIGART
Bulletin, vol.1(3), Oct. 1990, pp.7-11.
 R. Sosic, and J. Gu, “Fast Search Algorithms
for the N-Queens Problem,” IEEE
Transactions on Systems, Man, and
Cybernetics, vol.21(6), Nov. 1991, pp.1572-
1576.
 R. Sosic, and J. Gu, “3,000,000 Queens in
Less Than One Minute,” SIGART Bulletin,
vol.2(2), Apr. 1991, pp.22-24.