Processing Qualitative Temporal Constraints

In this chapter we provide an overview of the main techniques for processing qualitative temporal constraints. We survey a collection of algorithms for solving fundamental reasoning problems in the context of Allen’s Interval Algebra, Vilain and Kautz’s Point Algebra, and of other tractable and intractable classes of temporal relations. These problems include determining the satisfiability of a given set S of constraints; finding a consistent instantiation of the variables in S; deducing new (implicit) constraints from S, and computing the minimal network representation of S.