Historical Overview

Abstract

This chapter provides a brief review of the literature on decision diagrams, primarily as it relates to their use in optimization and constraint programming. It begins with an early history of decision diagrams and their relation to switching circuits. It then surveys some of the key articles that brought decision diagrams into optimization and constraint solving. In particular it describes the development of relaxed and restricted decision diagrams, the use of relaxed decision diagrams for enhanced constraint propagation and optimization bounding, and the elements of a general-purpose solver. It concludes with a brief description of the role of decision diagrams in solving some Markov decision problems in artificial intelligence.