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Constraint Programming

Advanced Course, 6 credit points
Spezialvorlesung, 6 Leistungspunkte

Summer 2005

Prof. Gert Smolka, Marco Kuhlmann (M.Sc.), Dipl. Inf. Guido Tack
Department of Computer Science, Saarland University

Lectures are on Thursdays, 14:15–16:00, in Building 45, HS 003.
Lectures start on April 14 and end on July 14.
No lectures on May 5 (Ascension) and May 26 (Corpus Christi)

This course was awarded the Teaching Award for the summer semester 2005.

Course description

Many computational problems can be described in terms of restrictions imposed on possible solutions. Constraint Programming is a problem-solving technique that works by incorporating such restrictions into a programming environment. Constraint Programming draws on methods from artificial intelligence, logic programming, and operations research. It has been successfully applied in a number of fields such as scheduling, computational linguistics, and computational biology.

The aim of this course is to

• create an understanding of the fundamental concepts underlying constraint programming,
• develop skills in modelling and solving combinatorial problems, and
• develop skills in taking advantage of strong algorithmic techniques.

To achieve these goals, the course will cover the following topics:

• modelling combinatorial problems using constraint programming
• constraint domains and notions of consistency
• a generic architecture for solving constraint problems using propagation and search
• applications of constraint programming

Besides the theoretical part, the course will put an emphasis on practical experience with state-of-the-art constraint programming systems.

Course prerequisites

You should have

• basic knowledge in logics, for example from an introductory logics course like LSV or CL
• basic knowledge about algorithms and data structures
• basic programming skills in Java or Standard ML

You will benefit from

• optimization, operations research, or similar courses
• last semester's seminar on constraint programming

Office hours

Wednesdays, 14:00–15:00

News

2005-06-03: The exam will take place on Thursday, July 14, 14:15-16:00.

2005-05-15: The slides for the first lecture are now online (see the Services page).

2005-05-15: You can now register for the course.

2005-04-14: The first assignment is online (see the Services page).

2005-02-21: set up the web pages