Introduction to Constraint Programming

Constraint Programming has become a powerful tool for modelling and solving a variety of industrial and academic combinatorial optimisation problems. This workshop will introduce the basic techniques of modelling and solving constraint problems, such as backtracking search, constraint propagation, global constraints, no-good learning and symmetry breaking.

The workshop includes hands-on exercises using MiniZinc, a constraint-based modelling language for optimisation problems. MiniZinc lets you write high-level, declarative models for problems such as scheduling, time tabling, vehicle routing or rostering - anything that can be expressed by constraints over integer and real-valued variables. MiniZinc can solve these models using a range of different algorithms, from Mathematical Programming (LP, MIP) to Constraint Programming and SAT/SMT. The workshop introduces you to the MiniZinc language and system through a series of examples and exercises. Download the open source MiniZinc system at www.minizinc.org.

 

Presenter: Dr Guido Tack

 

Guido is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He leads the faculty’s Modelling, Optimisation and Visualisation research flagship and is a member of the Decision Sciences group at Data61/CSIRO. His research focuses on architecture and implementation techniques for constraint programming systems. He leads the development of the MiniZinc constraint modelling language and toolchain and is one of the main developers of Gecode, an open, free, and efficient constraint programming library.