Range assignment of base-stations maximizing coverage area without interference

We study the problem of assigning non-overlapping geometric objects centered at a given set of points such that the sum of area covered by them is maximized. The problem remains open since 2002, as mentioned in a lecture slide of David Eppstein. In this paper, we have performed an exhaustive study on the problem. We show that, if the points are placed in R2 then the problem is NP-hard even for simplest type of covering objects like disks or squares. In contrast, Eppstein (2017) [10] proposed a polynomial time algorithm for maximizing the sum of radii (or perimeter) of non-overlapping disks when the points are arbitrarily placed in R2. We show that Eppstein's algorithm for maximizing sum of perimeter of the disks in R2 gives a 2-approximation solution for the sum of area maximization problem. We also propose a PTAS for the same problem. Our results can be extended in higher dimensions as well as for a class of centrally symmetric convex objects. © 2019