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Improving Backtrack Search For Solving the TCSP Lin Xu and Berthe Y. Choueiry Constraint Systems Laboratory Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of Nebraska-Lincoln { lxu | choueiry }@cse.unl.edu. Outline. Temporal networks Contributions Results
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Improving Backtrack Search For Solving the TCSP Lin Xu and Berthe Y. Choueiry Constraint Systems Laboratory Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of Nebraska-Lincoln { lxu | choueiry }@cse.unl.edu
Outline • Temporal networks • Contributions • Results • 2 order of magnitude improvement in solving the TCSP
Temporal networks • Simple Temporal Problem • Floyd-Warshall, Bellman-Ford • STP [Time 03] • Temporal Constraint Satisfaction Problem • Search + ULT [Schwalb & Dechter 97] • Our contribution [this talk] • Disjunctive Temporal Problem • Search + heuristics [S&K 00, O&C 00, Tsa&P 03] • Some of our results are applicable
Solving TCSP • TCSP is NP-hard, solved with BT [DM&P 91] • Contributions • Combination with previous results STP [Time 03] • Techniques that exploit structure • AC, a preprocessing step • Show effectiveness of Articulation Points (AP) • NewCyc avoids unnecessary consistency checking • EdgeOrd is a variable ordering heuristic • Localized backtracking • Implicit decomposition according to Articulation Points (AP) • Extensive evaluation on random problems
TCSP as a meta-CSP • Use STP to solve individual STPs efficiently • Especially effective on sparse networks • Requires triangulation: Plan A, Plan B
AC Single n-ary constraint GAC is NP-hard AC Works on existing triangles Poly # of poly constraints Preprocessing the TCSP
Advantages of AC • Powerful, especially for dense TCSPs • Sound and cheap O(n |E| k3) • It may be optimal • Uses polynomial-size data-structures: Supports, Supported-by • It uncovers a phase transition in TCSP
New Cycle Check: NewCyc • Check presence of new cycles O(|E|) • Check consistency (STP) only in a cycle is added to the graph
Advantages of NewCyc • Fewer consistency checking operations • Operations restricted to new bi-connected component • Does not affect # of nodes visited in search
EdgeOrd heuristic • Order edges using triangle adjacency • Priority list is a by product of triangulation
Advantages of EdgeOrd • Localized backtracking • Automatic decomposition of the constraint graph no need for explicit AP
Experimental evaluations • New random generator for TCSPs • Guarantees 80% existence of a solution • Averages over 100 samples • Networks are not triangulated
Expected (direct) effects • Number of nodes visited (#NV) • AC reduces the size of TCSP • EdgeOrd localizes BT • Consistency checking effort (#CC) • AP, STP, NewCyc, reduce number of consistency checking at each node
Cumulative improvement Before, after AP, after NewCyc,… … and now (AC, STP, NewCyc, EdgeOrd) Max on y-axis 18.000, 2 orders of magnitude improvement Max on y-axis 5.000.000
Future work • Use AC in a look-ahead strategy • Investigate incremental triangulation for • dynamic edge-ordering • using NewCyc in Disjunctive Temporal Problem • Plan B, heuristic [G. Noubir], algorithm [A. Berry] • Test with dynamic bundling [AusJCAI 01, SARA 02]