Application
You can apply to write your thesis at the Chair of Efficient Algorithms either by applying for a suggested topic (see current offerings below) or by applying with your own project proposal. In either case, please send your complete application, including (i) a short description of your motivation, (ii) your CV, (iii) your current transcript of record, and (iv) if you are interested in multiple suggested topics, a list of these topics in order of preference to application(at)algo.cit.tum.de. If you are applying with your own project, please attach a one- to two-page long project proposal, covering your research question, the state of the literature, your intended contribution, data sources, and methods.
| Topic | Type | Details |
| Tiling the Castle: Tiling a Polygonal Region with a Set of Given Rectangles | Research Project, Bachelor, Master | Motivated by a real-world problem, we seek an algorithm for tiling a polygon (forecourt of a hotel) with rectangles (stone slabs) from a given set of rectangles such that several objective functions are taken into account; among them: filling the area as much as possible, equal distribution of differently colored slabs, small and short gaps. |
| Using Game-Playing Reinforcement-Learning Frameworks for Graph Drawing Problems | Research Project, Bachelor, Master | On the Internet, there exist several reinforcement-learning frameworks for (board) games: one formulates the rules of the game and a reward function in the language of the framework. Then, in a training phase, the reinforcement-learning agent figures out a good strategy to maximize the reward. We are interested in formulating graph-drawing problems as rules + reward functions in these frameworks and test how well this works and which potentials for improvement exist. An example for such a graph drawing problem is the following. Given a graph and a grid, find a placement of nodes onto grid points such that the number of crossings in a straight-line drawing is minimized. |