Qualitative and Quantitative Fuzzy Temporal Constraints

This paper describes a model for temporal reasoning that handles both quantitative and qualitative information affected by vagueness and uncertainty. Starting from two existing models, namely the Meiri’s system [9] and IA fuz [2, 3], the proposed approach generalizes the first to a fuzzy framework and extends the second in order to handle qualitative constraints. The system uses the Fuzzy Constraint Satisfaction Problem theory to formulate reasoning tasks and so it takes advantage of traditional solving techniques such as Path-Consistency and Branch and Bound. A simple scheduling example shows the main features of the new system.