Constraint programming is one of the fundamental methodologies for solving hard discrete optimization problems, which is particularly adapted to scheduling, routing, and timetabling problems. It can also be hybridized nicely with mathematical programming techniques, especially combinatorial Benders decomposition and branch & price & check. It has become a mature technology with excellent commercial and open-source solvers. The current focus of this research is the design and implementation of the MiniCP solver, which provides a small kernel for students to learn constraint-programming implementations.
Publications
- MiniCP: A Lightweight Solver for Constraint Programming, Laurent Michel, Pierre Schaus, and Pascal Van Hentenryck. Mathematical Programming C, 13(1), 133-184, March 2021.
- Constraint Programming Models for Integrated Port Container Terminal Operations, Damla Kizilay, Pascal Van Hentenryck, and Deniz T. Eliiyi. European Journal on Operations Research. 286(3), 945-962, November 2020.
- Constraint and Mathematical Programming Models for Integrated Port Container Terminal Operations, Damla Kizilay, Deniz T. Eliiyi, and Pascal Van Hentenryck. 15th International Conference on the Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research, Delft, The Netherlands, June 26-29, 2018.
- Constraint-Based Local Search, Laurent Michel and Pascal Van Hentenryck, Handbook of Heuristics, R. Martí et al. (eds.), pp 1-38, Springer International Publishing AG, 2017.
- Branch and Check with Explanations for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows. Edward Lam and Pascal Van Hentenryck. In the Proceedings of the 23nd International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming. Melbourne Australia, August 2017.
- A Microkernel Architecture for Constraint Programming. Laurent Michel and Pascal Van Hentenryck. Constraints. 22(2), 107-151. April 2017.
- A Branch-and-Price-and-Check Model for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Location Resource constraints. Edward Lam and Pascal Van Hentenryck. Constraints 21(3): 394-412 (2016) (Fast-Track Paper from CPAIOR’06).
- Parallel Composition of Scheduling Solvers. Daniel Fontaine, Laurent Michel, and Pascal Van Hentenryck. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Integration of Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research Techniques in Constraint Programming (CP’AI’OR’16), Banff, Canada, May 2016.
- A Constraint Programming Approach for Non-Preemptive Evacuation Scheduling Caroline Even, Andreas Schutt, and Pascal Van Hentenryck. Proceedings of the International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, Cork, Ireland. September 2015.
- Joint Vehicle and Crew Routing and Scheduling Edward Lam and Pascal Van Hentenryck. Proceedings of the International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, Cork, Ireland. September 2015.