Goal Seeking Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization

The Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) modeling and solution framework is required for quantum and digital annealers whose goal is the optimization of a well defined metric, the objective function. However, diverse suboptimal solutions may be preferred over harder to implement strict optimal ones. In addition, the decision-maker usually has insights that are not always efficiently translated into the optimization model, such as acceptable target, interval or range values. Multi-criteria decision making is an example of involving the user in the decision process. In this paper, we present two variants of goal-seeking QUBO that minimize the deviation from the goal through a tabu-search based greedy one-flip heuristic. Experimental results illustrate the efficacy of the proposed approach over Constraint Programming for quickly finding a satisficing set of solutions.