Attieh, Saad Wasim A, Dang, Nguyen, Jefferson, Christopher et al. (2 more authors) (2025) Athanor: Local Search over Abstract Constraint Specifications. Artificial Intelligence. 104277. ISSN 0004-3702
Abstract
Local search is a common method for solving combinatorial optimisation problems. We focus on general-purpose local search solvers that accept as input a constraint model — a declarative description of a problem consisting of a set of decision variables under a set of constraints. Existing approaches typically take as input models written in solver-independent constraint modelling languages like MiniZinc. The Athanor solver we describe herein differs in that it begins from a specification of a problem in the abstract constraint specification language Essence, which allows problems to be described without commitment to low-level modelling decisions through its support for a rich set of abstract types. The advantage of proceeding from Essence is that the structure apparent in a concise, abstract specification of a problem can be exploited to generate high quality neighbourhoods automatically, avoiding the difficult task of identifying that structure in an equivalent constraint model. Based on the twin benefits of neighbourhoods derived from high level types and the scalability derived by searching directly over those types, our empirical results demonstrate strong performance in practice relative to existing solution methods.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Computer Science (York) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/W001977/1 |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 02 Jan 2025 14:00 |
Last Modified: | 01 Mar 2025 04:00 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2024.104277 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.artint.2024.104277 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:221133 |
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Description: Athanor: Local search over abstract constraint specifications
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