A Comparative Study On The Performance CharacteristicsOf Sudoku Solving Algorithms

Abstract

Solving Sudoku, a NP-Complete combinatorial optimization problem has been carried out using the optimized Graph Referencing Algorithm (GRA),Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA), Harmony Search (HS) and Brute Force algorithm. The present study is primarily aimed at finding out the fastest algorithm in terms of least time consumption in solving Sudoku. The performance characteristics of algorithms of interest are studied by deploying randomly selected puzzles with different difficulty levels. The comparative performance characteristics study reveals the superiority of the Graph Referencing algorithm over the other algorithms in taking least possible time to solve Sudoku.