On maximum bipartite matching with separation

Maximum bipartite matching is a fundamental algorithmic problem which can be solved in polynomial time. We consider a natural variant in which there is a separation constraint: the vertices on one side lie on a path or a grid, and two vertices that are close to each other are not allowed to be matched simultaneously. We show that the problem is hard to approximate even for paths, and provide constant-factor approximation algorithms for both paths and grids.