Temporal Constraints: A Survey

Abstract. Temporal Constraint Satisfaction is an information technology useful for representing and answering queries about the times of events and the temporal relations between them. Information is represented as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem CSP where variables denote event times and constraints represent the possible temporal relations between them. The main tasks are two: i deciding consistency, and ii answering queries about scenarios that satisfy all constraints. This paper overviews results on several classes of Temporal CSPs: qualitative interval, qualitative point, metric point, and some of their combinations. Research has progressed along three lines: i identifying tractable subclasses, ii developing exact search algorithms, and iii developing polynomial-time approximation algorithms. Most available techniques are based on two principles: i enforcing local consistency e.g. path-consistency, and ii enhancing naive backtracking search.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 1998
• Where: CONSTRAINTS
• Authors: Eddie Schwalb, Lluís Vila
• Keywords: Constraint Satisfaction, CONSTRAINTS 1998, Temporal Constraint Satisfaction, Temporal Relations