Cardinal: A Finite Sets Constraint Solver

In this paper we present Cardinal, a general finite sets constraint solver just made publicly available in ECLiPSe Prolog, suitable for combinatorial problem solving by exploiting inferences over sets cardinality. In fact, to deal with set variables and set constraints, existing set constraint solvers are not adequate to handle a number of problems, as they do not actively use important information about the cardinality of the sets, a key feature in such problems. Cardinal is formally presented as a set of rewriting rules on a constraint store and we illustrate its efficiency with experimental results. We show the importance of propagating constraints on sets cardinality, by comparing Cardinal with other solvers. Another contribution of this paper is on modelling: we focus essentially on digital circuits problems, for which we present new modelling approaches and prove that sets alone can be used to model these problems in a clean manner and solve them efficiently using Cardinal. Resul...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: CONSTRAINTS
• Authors: Francisco Azevedo
• Keywords: CONSTRAINTS 2007, General Finite Sets, Problems, Sets Cardinality