Solver-Admitted Metamorphic Testing of Learned Network Optimization Surrogates

Vineet Jagadeesan Nair, Stephen Peng, Arun Ravindran

Equivalent encodings of an optimization problem can produce different learned predictions. Interpreting these differences requires accounting for numerical error and multiple optima. We construct metamorphic tests for optimization solver surrogates with explicit eligibility conditions, output alignment, and numerical thresholds. Reference-solver agreement and independent constraint checks determine which sampled pairs enter the audit. We study alternating-current optimal power flow (AC-OPF), the traveling salesman problem (TSP), the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP), and maximum independent set (MIS). Across five grids, GridSFM-Open violates each of 13 relations on at least one grid, and 12 by more than twice the threshold. Randomly initialized copies of the grid models fail nearly the same relations, so the failures do not require training. Source patches and input canonicalization remove selected discrepancies, but no intervention establishes preserved accuracy and feasibility within the declared margin on every grid. In routing, Policy Optimization with Multiple Optima (POMO) has a single-pass rotation/reflection violation rate that rises from 12.7% to 89.5% between…