Constraint programming for air traffic management: preface

摘要

Constraint Programming (CP)-see Rossi et al. (2006), for instance-is a powerful technology to model and solve combinatorial (optimization) problems, which are ubiquitous in industry. CP works either via systematic tree search interleaved with constraint propagation (the elimination of impossible values) at every node of the search tree, or via constraint-based local search. CP is an ideal integration technology for hybrid solving, including methods from classical operations research as well, such as mixed integer programming (IP), and Boolean satisfiability. CP is now a mature technology and has been successfully used for tackling a wide range of real-life complex applications, especially for short-term scheduling, personnel rostering, and configuration problems.