A unified framework of FPT approximation algorithms for clustering problems

In this paper, we present a framework for designing FPT approximation algorithms for many k-clustering problems. Our results are based on a new technique for reducing search spaces. A reduced search space is a small subset of the input data that has the guarantee of containing k clients close to the facilities opened in an optimal solution for any clustering problem we consider. We show, somewhat surprisingly, that greedily sampling O(k) clients yields the desired reduced search space, based on which we obtain FPT(k)-time algorithms with improved approximation guarantees for problems such as capacitated clustering, lower-bounded clustering, clustering with service installation costs, fault tolerant clustering, and priority clustering.