Probabilistic analysis of some bin-packing problems

Abstract

We analyze the average-case behaviour of the Next-Fit algorithm for bin-packing, and obtain closed-form expressions for distributions of interest. Our analysis is based on a novel technique of partitioning the interval (0, 1) suitably and then formulating the problem as a matrix-differential equation. We compare our analytic results with previously known simulation results and show that there is an excellent agreement between the two. We also explain a certain empirically observed anomaly in the behaviour of the algorithm. Finally we establish that asymptotically perfect packing is possible when input items are drawn from a monotonically decreasing density function.