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Constraint Programming

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Abstract

Constraint satisfaction problems are ubiquitous. A simple example that we will use throughout the first half of this chapter is the following scheduling problem: Choose employees A or B for each of three tasks, X, Y, Z, subject to the work rules that the same employee cannot carry out both tasks X and Y, the same employee cannot carry out both tasks Y and Z, and only employee B is allowed to carry out task Z. (Many readers will recognize this as a simple coloring problem.)

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Acknowledgements

Some of this material is based upon works supported by the Science Foundation Ireland under Eugene Freuder’s Grant No. 00/PI.1/C075; some of his contribution to this chapter was prepared while he was at the University of New Hampshire. Richard Wallace and Dan Sabin provided some assistance. The contents of this chapter overlap with a chapter by the same authors on Constraint Satisfaction in the Handbook of Metaheuristics, edited by Fred W. Glover and Gary A. Kochenberger, and published by Kluwer Academic Press.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Eugene C. Freuder

  2. Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Mark Wallace

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  1. Eugene C. Freuder
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Correspondence to Mark Wallace .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Science and Mathematics, University of Stirling, Scotland, United Kingdom

    Edmund K. Burke

  2. Research and Knowledge Transfer, University of Nottingham, Malaysia & UK, Semenyih, Malaysia

    Graham Kendall

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Freuder, E.C., Wallace, M. (2014). Constraint Programming. In: Burke, E., Kendall, G. (eds) Search Methodologies. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6940-7_14

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