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Constraint Programming

Advanced Course, 6 credit points
Spezialvorlesung, 6 Leistungspunkte

Summer 2007

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

Lectures are on Mondays, 14:15–16:00, in Building E1.3 (former building 45), HS 001.
Lectures start on April 16 and end on July 16. No lecture on May 28 (Pentecost).
Tutorials are on Thursdays, 16:15–17:00.

News

2007-04-16: the slides for the first lecture and the first assignment are now online (see the Services page).

2007-04-15: the first tutorial will be given on Thursday, April 19, at 16:00 in room E1.3.528 (seminar room, 5th floor)

2007-02-27: set up the web pages

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

You will benefit from

• optimization, operations research, or similar courses

Office hours

Wednesdays, 13:30-14:30, room E1.3.517

Assessment / Exams

The final exam will take place on July 16. There will be no re-exam. The final grades will depend both on the assignments and your result in the final exam. The exact details will be announced in the first lecture on April 16.