Constraint Satisfaction by Means of Dynamic Polyhedra

Nowadays, many real problems in the Artificial Intelligence environments, can be efficiently modelled as Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSP’s) and can be solved by means of Operational Research techniques. It is well known that any non-binary CSP can be transformed into an equivalent binary one, using some of the current techniques. However, this transformation may not be practical in problems with certain properties. Therefore, it is necessary to manage these non-binary constraints directly. In this paper, we propose an algorithm called "HSA≠" that solves non-binary constraint satisfaction problems in a natural way as an incremental and non-binary CSP solver. This non-binary CSP solver carries out the search through a polyhedron that maintains in its vertices those solutions that satisfy all non-binary constraints.