Abstract

Search algorithms for solving CSP (Constraint Satisfaction Problems) usually fall into one of two main families: local search algorithms and systematic algorithms. Both families have their advantages. Designing hybrid approaches seems promising since those advantages may be combined into a single approach. In this paper, we present a new hybrid technique. It performs a local search over partial assignments instead of complete assignments, and uses filtering techniques and conflict-based techniques to efficiently guide the search. This new technique benefits from both classical approaches: aprioripruning of the search space from filtering-based search and possible repair of early mistakes from local search. We focus on a specific version of this technique: tabu decision-repair.Experiments done on open-shop scheduling problems show that our approach competes well with the best highly specialized algorithms. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Citations