Special Sudoku

Here is a difficult Sudoku variant designed by Aad van de Wetering. Aad is a former colleague of mine.

Problem

The standard Sudoku rules apply:

• Each cell has an integer value between 1 and 9 
• In each row, column and sub-block cells must be unique
• Some cells have a predefined value

In addition, we have the following restriction:

• The maximum difference between the value of two neighboring cells (orthogonal, that is horizontal or vertical) is 5

To solve this you can follow this video [1]:

Of course, we want to try to solve this as a Mixed-Integer Programming model.

Review: a linear integer programming model for standard Sudoku

When we want to solve Sudokus, the easiest approach is to define the following binary decision variables [2]: $$x_{i,j,k} = \begin{cases} 1 & \text{if cell $(i,j)$ has value $k$} \\ 0 & \text{otherwise}\end{cases}$$ Here $k \in \{1,\dots,9\}$. We have 27 areas we need to check for unique values: rows, columns and sub-blocks. We can organize this as a set:  $$u_{a,i,j}\>\text{exists if and only if area $a$ contains cell $(i,j)$}$$ This is data. We also have a set of given cells, which we can fix. The resultimg MIP model can look like [2]:

Mixed-Integer Programming Model for standard Sudoku

$$\begin{align}\min\>& 0 && && \text{Dummy objective}\\ & \sum_k \color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} = 1 &&\forall i,j && \text{One $k$ in each cell}\\ & \sum_{i,j|\color{darkblue}u_{a,i,j}} \color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} = 1 && \forall a,k && \text{Unique values in each area}\\ & \color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} = 1 && \text{where } k=\color{darkblue}{\mathit{Given}}_{i,j} &&\text{Fix given values}\\ &\color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} \in \{0,1\} \end{align}$$

During post-processing, we can calculate the completed grid using the optimal values of $x$: $$v_{i,j} = \sum_k k \cdot x^*_{i,j,k}$$

Linear integer programming model for Sudoku variant

We need to introduce the concept of "neighbors". We can define the set: $$nb_{i,j,i',j'} \> \text{exists iff cells $(i,j)$ and $(i',j')$ are neighbors}$$ I excluded symmetric cases. To be precise: in GAMS, I populated this set with:

alias (i,ii),(j,jj); set   nb(i,j,ii,jj) 'neighbors' ; nb(i,j,i-1,j) = yes; nb(i,j,i,j-1) = yes;

We can introduce the post-processing step directly into the MIP and then enforce our difference constraint on the variables $v_{i,j}$. This can look like $$\begin{align} & v_{i,j} = \sum_k k \cdot x_{i,j,k} && \text{cell values as constraint} \\ & -5 \le v_{i,j} - v_{i',j'} \le 5 && \text{for neigboring cells $(i,j)$ and $(i',j')$}\end{align}$$
With this, we can formulate:

Mixed-Integer Programming Model for Sudoku Variant

$$\begin{align}\min\>& 0 && && \text{Dummy objective}\\ & \sum_k \color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} = 1 &&\forall i,j && \text{One $k$ in each cell}\\ & \sum_{i,j|\color{darkblue}u_{a,i,j}} \color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} = 1 && \forall a,k && \text{Unique values in each area}\\ &\color{darkred}v_{i,j} =\sum_k \color{darkblue}k\cdot\color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} && \forall i,j &&\text{Value of cell}\\ & -5 \le \color{darkred}v_{i,j} - \color{darkred}v_{i',j'} \le 5 &&\forall i,j,i',j'|\color{darkblue}{nb}_{i,j,i',j'} && \text{Neighbors differ by max 5} \\ & \color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} = 1 && \text{where } k=\color{darkblue}{\mathit{Given}}_{i,j} &&\text{Fix given values}\\&\color{darkred}x_{i,j,k} \in \{0,1\} \\ &\color{darkred}v_{i,j} \in \{1,\dots,9\} \end{align}$$

This model solves very easily. The presolver can solve this model completely, so we don't even have to start the branch-and-bound phase. As a result, we can make a much shorter movie:

The solution of this model looks like:

----     80 VARIABLE v.L  value of each cell

            c1          c2          c3          c4          c5          c6          c7          c8          c9

r1           2           4           9           6           7           5           8           3           1
r2           3           8           5           1           4           9           6           7           2
r3           7           6           1           2           3           8           9           5           4
r4           8           9           6           3           1           4           5           2           7
r5           5           7           3           8           6           2           1           4           9
r6           1           2           4           5           9           7           3           8           6
r7           6           1           2           4           8           3           7           9           5
r8           4           3           7           9           5           1           2           6           8
r9           9           5           8           7           2           6           4           1           3

Unique solution

A proper Sudoku puzzle has one unique solution. We can verify this by adding a cut to the problem after solving it. The cut should forbid the current solution (and allow all other solutions). In this case, the cut can look like $$\sum_{i,j,k} x^*_{i,j,k} x_{i,j,k}\le 9^2-1$$ where $x^*$ is the previously found solution. Indeed, this puzzle has a single, unique solution: after adding the cut, the problem becomes (integer) infeasible.

References

1. A Sudoku With Just 11 Digits = Dutch Genius!, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU5fSDHJq8k
2. MIP Modeling: from Sudoku to KenKen via Logarithms, https://yetanothermathprogrammingconsultant.blogspot.com/2016/10/mip-modeling-from-sudoku-to-kenken.html