REPLI: Constraint-based reasoning and combinatorial optimization:
                  Application to planning and uncertainty management

                  Coordinated project: TIC2002-04470-C03
 

    Main researchers:

    Abstract:

    The inclusion of soft constraints in the constraint-based reasoning model has
    connected this model with combinatorial optimization. This allows one to have a
    common view of both areas, exchanging methods between them. This project tries to
    use, integrate and extend ideas that have been shown successful for constraint
    reasoning in a double dimension:

    - Soft constraints. Contribution to the issues caused by the inclusion of soft
    constraints in the constraint model, extending existing results for hard constraints. In
    particular, we will focus on soft constraint propagation and local consistency, resolution
    algorithms and their complexity, and the efficient formulation of real problems.

    - Applications. To apply constraint techniques to two different fields: planning and
    uncertainty management. On planning, the idea of planning as heuristic search wll be
    extended to produce a temporal planner of high performance, combining a
    branch-and-bound scheme with prunning techniques based con constraint
    propagation. On uncertainty management, constraint-solving algorithms based on
    decomposition will be applied to bayesian networks and to the possibilistic model.
    Finally, other problems will be studied, in particular the optimization of circuit design.
    Project benefits include not only the above mentioned contributions and the
    resolution of the applications, but also the integration of research groups with
    complementary backgrounds.