Limitations

Timeframe

For this project, the client has set strict deadlines as follows:

• Start date - 17 July 2018
• Planning phase - 26 July 2018
• Milestone 1: basic implementation/demo - 6 August 2018
• Milestone 2: final implementation/demo - 20 August 2018
• Report - 24 August 2018

This means that our choice of implementation is affected, as we must be careful to use an algorithm which we are confident in our ability to implement within this timeframe.

Runtime

The running time of our algorithm is one of the key constraints for this project. As such, this limits our choice of algorithm/implementation to the fastest possible options. This limitation also affects the libraries we use, as speed is of the utmost importance, so we have prioritized using libraries that provide superior speed (even at the cost of ease of implementation) wherever possible.

Optimality & Validity of Solutions

Conflicting slightly with the runtime limitation, our project's final implementation is also required to output a solution that is both valid AND optimal. Therefore our choice of algorithm must exclude those which may provide faster speed, but not produce an optimal solution.