Consistency Techniques in Ordinary Diierential Equations

This paper takes a fresh look at the application of interval analysis to ordinary diierential equations and studies how consistency techniques can help address the accuracy problems typically exhibited by these methods, while trying to preserve their eeciency. It proposes to generalize interval techniques into a two-step process: a forward process that computes an enclosure and a backward process that reduces this enclosure. Consistency techniques apply naturally to the backward (pruning) step but can also be applied to the forward phase. The paper describes the framework, studies the various steps in detail, proposes a number of novel techniques, and gives some preliminary experimental results to indicate the potential of this new research avenue.