Constraint Satisfaction

Problems

Chapter 5
Section 1 – 3

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 Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs)

 CSP:
 Allows useful general-purpose algorithms with more power than standard
search algorithms
 A Constraint Satisfaction Problem(or CSP) is defined by a set of
variables ,X1,X2,….Xn,and a set of constraints C1,C2,…,Cm. Each variable Xi has a
nonempty domain D,of possible values. Each constraint Ci involves some
subset of variables and specifies the allowable combinations of values for that
subset.
 A State of the problem is defined by an assignment of values to some or all
of the variables,{Xi = vi,Xj = vj,…}. An assignment that does not violate any
constraints is called a consistent or legal assignment. A complete
assignment is one in which every variable is mentioned,and a solution to a
CSP is a complete assignment that satisfies all the constraints.
 Some CSPs also require a solution that maximizes an objective function.

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 Example: Map-Coloring

 Variables WA, NT, Q, NSW, V, SA, T

 Domains Di = {red,green,blue}

 Constraints: adjacent regions must have different colors

 e.g., WA ≠ NT

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 Example: Map-Coloring

 Solutions are complete and consistent assignments,

e.g., WA = red, NT = green,Q = red,NSW =
green,V = red,SA = blue,T = green

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 Constraint graph
 Binary CSP: each constraint relates two variables
 Constraint graph: nodes are variables, arcs are constraints

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 Varieties of CSPs
 Discrete variables
 finite domains:
 n variables, domain size d  O(d n) complete assignments
 e.g., 3-SAT (NP-complete)
 infinite domains:
 integers, strings, etc.
 e.g., job scheduling, variables are start/end days for each job:
StartJob1 + 5 ≤ StartJob3

 Continuous variables
 linear objective & constraints solvable in polynomial time by linear
programming
 There are very good, off-the-shelves, methods for convex
optimization problems.

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 Varieties of constraints
 Unary constraints involve a single variable,
 e.g., SA ≠ green

 Binary constraints involve pairs of variables,

 e.g., SA ≠ WA

 Higher-order constraints involve 3 or more

variables,
 e.g., SA ≠ WA ≠ NT

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 Example: Cryptarithmetic

 Variables: F T U W R O X1 X2 X3
 Domains: {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} {0,1}
 Constraints: Alldiff (F,T,U,W,R,O)
 O + O = R + 10 · X1
 X1 + W + W = U + 10 · X2
 X2 + T + T = O + 10 · X3
 X3 = F, T ≠ 0, F ≠ 0
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 Backtracking (Depth-First) search
• Special property of CSPs: They are commutative:
NT = WA
This means: the order in which we assign variables
WA NT
does not matter.

• Search tree: First order variables, then assign them values one-by-one.

D
WA WA WA
WA
NT D^2
WA WA
NT NT

D^N
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Backtracking example

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Backtracking example

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Backtracking example

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Backtracking example

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Backtracking -CSP

Figure 2.17 A simple backtracking algorithm for constraint satisfaction problem. The algorithm is
modeled on the recursive depth-first search

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 Improving backtracking efficiency
 General-purpose methods can give huge
gains in speed:
 Which variable should be assigned next?
 In what order should its values be tried?
 Can we detect inevitable failure early?

 We’ll discuss heuristics for all these questions in

the following.

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 Which variable should be assigned next?
minimum remaining values heuristic
 Most constrained variable:
choose the variable with the fewest legal values

 a.k.a. minimum remaining values (MRV)

heuristic

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 Which variable should be assigned next?
 degree heuristic
 Tie-breaker among most constrained
variables

 Most constraining variable:

 choose the variable with the most constraints on
remaining variables (most edges in graph)

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 In what order should its values be tried?
 least constraining value heuristic

 Given a variable, choose the least constraining

value:
 the one that rules out the fewest values in the
remaining variables

 Leaves maximal flexibility for a solution.

 Combining these heuristics makes 1000 queens
feasible
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 Rationale for MRV, DH, LCV
 In all cases we want to enter the most promising branch, but we also
want to detect inevitable failure as soon as possible.

 MRV+DH: the variable that is most likely to cause failure in a branch is

assigned first. The variable must be assigned at some point, so if it is
doomed to fail, we’d better found out soon. E.g X1-X2-X3, values 0,1,
neighbors cannot be the same.

 LCV: tries to avoid failure by assigning values that leave maximal

flexibility for the remaining variables. We want our search to succeed as
soon as possible, so given some ordering, we want to find the
successful branch.

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 Can we detect inevitable failure early?
 forward checking
 Idea:
 Keep track of remaining legal values for unassigned variables
that are connected to current variable.
 Terminate search when any variable has no legal values

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 Forward checking
 Idea:
 Keep track of remaining legal values for unassigned variables
 Terminate search when any variable has no legal values

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 Forward checking
 Idea:
 Keep track of remaining legal values for unassigned variables
 Terminate search when any variable has no legal values

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 Forward checking
 Idea:
 Keep track of remaining legal values for unassigned variables
 Terminate search when any variable has no legal values

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2) Consider the constraint graph on the right.
The domain for every variable is [1,2,3,4].
There are 2 unary constraints:
- variable “a” cannot take values 3 and 4.
- variable “b” cannot take value 4.
There are 8 binary constraints stating that variables
connected by an edge cannot have the same value.
b
Find a solution for this CSP by using the following
heuristics: minimum value heuristic, degree heuristic,
forward checking. Explain each step of your answer.
a c e

CONSTRAINT GRAPH
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2) Consider the constraint graph on the right.
The domain for every variable is [1,2,3,4].
There are 2 unary constraints:
- variable “a” cannot take values 3 and 4.
- variable “b” cannot take value 4.
There are 8 binary constraints stating that variables
connected by an edge cannot have the same value.
b
Find a solution for this CSP by using the following
heuristics: minimum value heuristic, degree heuristic,
forward checking. Explain each step of your answer.
a c e
MVH a=1 (for example)
FC+MVH b=2
FC+MVH c=3
FC+MVH d=4
d
FC e=1

CONSTRAINT GRAPH
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 Constraint propagation
 Forward checking only checks consistency between assigned
and non-assigned states. How about constraints
between two unassigned states?

 NT and SA cannot both be blue!

 Constraint propagation repeatedly enforces constraints locally

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 Arc consistency
 Simplest form of propagation makes each arc consistent
 X Y is consistent iff
for every value x of X there is some allowed y of Y

consistent arc.

constraint propagation propagates arc consistency on the graph.

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 Arc consistency
 Simplest form of propagation makes each arc consistent
 X Y is consistent iff
for every value x of X there is some allowed y

inconsistent arc.
remove blue from source consistent arc.

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 Arc consistency
 Simplest form of propagation makes each arc consistent
 X Y is consistent iff
for every value x of X there is some allowed y

 thisneighbors
If X loses a value, arc just became inconsistent
of X need to be rechecked:
i.e. incoming arcs can become inconsistent again
(outgoing arcs will stay consistent).

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 Arc consistency
 Simplest form of propagation makes each arc consistent
 X Y is consistent iff
for every value x of X there is some allowed y

 If X loses a value, neighbors of X need to be rechecked

 Arc consistency detects failure earlier than forward checking
 Can be run as a preprocessor or after each assignment
# arcs
 Time complexity: O(n2d3) d^2 for checking, each node can be checked d times at most 30
 Arc Consistency

 This is a propagation algorithm. It’s like sending messages to neighbors

on the graph! How do we schedule these messages?

 Every time a domain changes, all incoming messages need to be re-

send. Repeat until convergence  no message will change any
domains.

 Since we only remove values from domains when they can never be
part of a solution, an empty domain means no solution possible at all 
back out of that branch.

 Forward checking is simply sending messages into a variable that just

got its value assigned. First step of arc-consistency.
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 Constraint Propagation Algorithm

• Maintain all allowed values for each variable.

• At each iteration pick the variable with the fewest remaining values
• For variables with equal nr of remaining values, break ties by checking
which variable has the largest nr of constraints with unassigned variables
• After we picked a variable, tentatively assign it to each of the remaining
values in turn and run constraint propagation to convergence.
(This involves iteratively making all arcs consistent that flow into domains that
just have been changed, beginning with the neighbors of
the variable you just assigned a value to and iterating until no more changes occur.)
• Among all checked values, pick the one that removed the least values
from other domains using constraint propagation.
• Now run constraint propagation once more (or recall it from memory) for the
assigned value and remove the the values from the domains of the other variables.
• When domains get empty, back out of that branch.
• Iterate until a solution has been found.
• (as an alternative you only do constraint propagation after an assignment to prune
domains of other variables but avoid doing it for all values. Use simply forward
checking with the LCV heuristic to pick a value) 32
 Try it yourself
[R,B,G] [R,B,G]

[R]

[R,B,G] [R,B,G]

Use all heuristics including arc-propagation to solve this problem.

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34
 B G R R G B

B a priori
B B R G B
R constrained
G R
G G
nodes

Note: After the backward pass, there is guaranteed

to be a legal choice for a child node for any of its
leftover values.
This removes any inconsistent values from Parent(Xj),
it applies arc-consistency moving backwards.

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36
Junction Tree Decompositions

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 Local search for CSPs
 Note: The path to the solution is unimportant, so we can
apply local search!

 To apply to CSPs:
 allow states with unsatisfied constraints
 operators reassign variable values

 Variable selection: randomly select any conflicted variable

 Value selection by min-conflicts heuristic:

 choose value that violates the fewest constraints
 i.e., hill-climb with h(n) = total number of violated constraints

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 Example: 4-Queens
 States: 4 queens in 4 columns (44 = 256 states)
 Actions: move queen in column
 Goal test: no attacks
 Evaluation: h(n) = number of attacks

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40
 Hard satisfiability problems

 A,B,C,D,E can take value (true, false).

 A=true means that A must be false.
 (B  A  C) =true means that B=true or A=false or C=false
 Consider random conjunctions of constraints:
(D  B  C)=true  (B  A  C)=true  (C  B  E)=true
 (E  D  B)=true  (B  E  C)=true
 We want to find assignments that make all constraints true
m = number of clauses (5)
n = number of symbols (5)
 Hard problems seem to cluster near m/n = 4.3 (critical point)

Implementing algorithms for random 3-SAT problems will be your project

Hard satisfiability problems
 Hard satisfiability problems

 Median runtime for 100 satisfiable random 3-

CNF sentences, n = 50
 Summary
 CSPs are a special kind of search problem:
 states defined by values of a fixed set of variables
 goal test defined by constraints on variable values

 Backtracking = depth-first search with one variable assigned per

level.
 Variable ordering and value selection heuristics help significantly
 Forward checking prevents assignments that guarantee later failure
 Constraint propagation (e.g., arc consistency) does additional work
to constrain values and detect inconsistencies
 Iterative min-conflicts is usually effective in practice

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