Integer programming models for the multidimensional assignment problem with star costs

•We introduce a continuous nonlinear program for solving the multidimensional star assignment problem (MSAP).•We transform the initial formulation into a mixed integer linear optimization program.•We propose valid inequalities to improve the lower bound of the proposed formulation.•We reformulate the MSAP as a set partitioning problem, and solve it via branch and price.•We test our approach by solving several MSAP instances of different sizes.

We consider a variant of the multidimensional assignment problem (MAP) with decomposable costs in which the resulting optimal assignment is described as a set of disjoint stars. This problem arises in the context of multi-sensor multi-target tracking problems, where a set of measurements, obtained from a collection of sensors, must be associated to a set of different targets. To solve this problem we study two different formulations. First, we introduce a continuous nonlinear program and its linearization, along with additional valid inequalities that improve the lower bounds. Second, we state the standard MAP formulation as a set partitioning problem, and solve it via branch and price. These approaches were put to test by solving instances ranging from tripartite to 20-partite graphs of 4 to 30 nodes per partition. Computational results show that our approaches are a viable option to solve this problem. A comparative study is presented.