CS 188: Artificial Intelligence
Constraint Satisfaction Problems
University of California, Berkeley
[These slides were created by Dan Klein and Pieter Abbeel for CS188 Intro to AI at UC Berkeley. All CS188 materials are available at http://ai.berkeley.edu.]
What is Search For?
Assumptions about the world: a single agent, deterministic actions, fully observed
state, discrete state space
Planning: sequences of actions
The path to the goal is the important thing
Paths have various costs, depths
Heuristics give problem-specific guidance
Identification: assignments to variables
The goal itself is important, not the path
All paths at the same depth (for some formulations)
CSPs are specialized for identification problems
Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Standard search problems:
State is a “black box”: arbitrary data structure
Goal test can be any function over states
Successor function can also be anything
Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs):
A special subset of search problems
State is defined by variables Xi with values from a
domain D (sometimes D depends on i)
Goal test is a set of constraints specifying allowable
combinations of values for subsets of variables
Simple example of a formal representation language
Allows useful general-purpose algorithms with more
power than standard search algorithms
CSP Examples
Example: Map Coloring
Variables:
Domains:
Constraints: adjacent regions must have different
colors
Implicit:
Explicit:
Solutions are assignments satisfying all
constraints, e.g.:
Example: N-Queens
Formulation 1:
Variables:
Domains:
Constraints
Example: N-Queens
Formulation 2:
Variables:
Domains:
Constraints:
Implicit:
Explicit:
Constraint Graphs
Constraint Graphs
Binary CSP: each constraint relates (at most) two
variables
Binary constraint graph: nodes are variables, arcs
show constraints
General-purpose CSP algorithms use the graph
structure to speed up search. E.g., Tasmania is an
independent subproblem!
[Demo: CSP applet (made available by aispace.org) -- n-queens]
Screenshot of Demo N-Queens
Example: Cryptarithmetic
Variables:
Domains:
Constraints:
Example: Sudoku
Variables:
Each (open) square
Domains:
{1,2,…,9}
Constraints:
9-way alldiff for each column
9-way alldiff for each row
9-way alldiff for each region
(or can have a bunch of
pairwise inequality
constraints)
Example: The Waltz Algorithm
The Waltz algorithm is for interpreting
line drawings of solid polyhedra as 3D
objects
An early example of an AI computation
posed as a CSP
?
Approach:
Each intersection is a variable
Adjacent intersections impose constraints
on each other
Solutions are physically realizable 3D
interpretations
Varieties of CSPs and Constraints
Varieties of CSPs
Discrete Variables
Finite domains
Size d means O(dn) complete assignments
E.g., Boolean CSPs, including Boolean satisfiability (NP-
complete)
Infinite domains (integers, strings, etc.)
E.g., job scheduling, variables are start/end times for each job
Linear constraints solvable, nonlinear undecidable
Continuous variables
E.g., start/end times for Hubble Telescope observations
Linear constraints solvable in polynomial time by LP methods
(see cs170 for a bit of this theory)
Varieties of Constraints
Varieties of Constraints
Unary constraints involve a single variable (equivalent to
reducing domains), e.g.:
Binary constraints involve pairs of variables, e.g.:
Higher-order constraints involve 3 or more variables:
e.g., cryptarithmetic column constraints
Preferences (soft constraints):
E.g., red is better than green
Often representable by a cost for each variable assignment
Gives constrained optimization problems
(We’ll ignore these until we get to Bayes’ nets)
Real-World CSPs
Assignment problems: e.g., who teaches what class
Timetabling problems: e.g., which class is offered when and where?
Hardware configuration
Transportation scheduling
Factory scheduling
Circuit layout
Fault diagnosis
… lots more!
Many real-world problems involve real-valued variables…
Solving CSPs
Standard Search Formulation
Standard search formulation of CSPs
States defined by the values assigned
so far (partial assignments)
Initial state: the empty assignment, {}
Successor function: assign a value to an
unassigned variable
Goal test: the current assignment is
complete and satisfies all constraints
We’ll start with the straightforward,
naïve approach, then improve it
Search Methods
What would BFS do?
What would DFS do?
What problems does naïve search have?
[Demo: coloring -- dfs]
Video of Demo Coloring -- DFS
Backtracking Search
Backtracking Search
Backtracking search is the basic uninformed algorithm for solving CSPs
Idea 1: One variable at a time
Variable assignments are commutative, so fix ordering
I.e., [WA = red then NT = green] same as [NT = green then WA = red]
Only need to consider assignments to a single variable at each step
Idea 2: Check constraints as you go
I.e. consider only values which do not conflict previous assignments
Might have to do some computation to check the constraints
“Incremental goal test”
Depth-first search with these two improvements
is called backtracking search (not the best name)
Can solve n-queens for n 25
Backtracking Example
Backtracking Search
Backtracking = DFS + variable-ordering + fail-on-violation
What are the choice points?
[Demo: coloring -- backtracking]
Video of Demo Coloring – Backtracking
Improving Backtracking
General-purpose ideas give huge gains in speed
Ordering:
Which variable should be assigned next?
In what order should its values be tried?
Filtering: Can we detect inevitable failure early?
Structure: Can we exploit the problem structure?
Filtering
Filtering: Forward Checking
Filtering: Keep track of domains for unassigned variables and cross off bad options
Forward checking: Cross off values that violate a constraint when added to the existing
assignment
NT Q
WA
SA NSW
V
[Demo: coloring -- forward checking]
Video of Demo Coloring – Backtracking with Forward Checking
Filtering: Constraint Propagation
Forward checking propagates information from assigned to unassigned variables, but
doesn't provide early detection for all failures:
NT Q
WA
SA
NSW
V
NT and SA cannot both be blue!
Why didn’t we detect this yet?
Constraint propagation: reason from constraint to constraint
Consistency of A Single Arc
An arc X Y is consistent iff for every x in the tail there is some y in the head which
could be assigned without violating a constraint
NT Q
WA
SA
NSW
V
Delete from the tail!
Forward checking: Enforcing consistency of arcs pointing to each new assignment
Arc Consistency of an Entire CSP
A simple form of propagation makes sure all arcs are consistent:
NT Q
WA SA
NSW
V
Important: If X loses a value, neighbors of X need to be rechecked!
Arc consistency detects failure earlier than forward checking
Remember: Delete
Can be run as a preprocessor or after each assignment from the tail!
What’s the downside of enforcing arc consistency?
Enforcing Arc Consistency in a CSP
Runtime: O(n2d3), can be reduced to O(n2d2)
… but detecting all possible future problems is NP-hard – why?
[Demo: CSP applet (made available by aispace.org) -- n-queens]
Video of Demo Arc Consistency – CSP Applet – n Queens
Limitations of Arc Consistency
After enforcing arc
consistency:
Can have one solution left
Can have multiple solutions left
Can have no solutions left (and
not know it)
Arc consistency still runs What went
wrong here?
inside a backtracking search!
[Demo: coloring -- forward checking]
[Demo: coloring -- arc consistency]
Video of Demo Coloring – Backtracking with Forward Checking –
Complex Graph
Video of Demo Coloring – Backtracking with Arc Consistency –
Complex Graph
Ordering
Ordering: Minimum Remaining Values
Variable Ordering: Minimum remaining values (MRV):
Choose the variable with the fewest legal left values in its domain
Why min rather than max?
Also called “most constrained variable”
“Fail-fast” ordering
Ordering: Least Constraining Value
Value Ordering: Least Constraining Value
Given a choice of variable, choose the least
constraining value
I.e., the one that rules out the fewest values in
the remaining variables
Note that it may take some computation to
determine this! (E.g., rerunning filtering)
Why least rather than most?
Combining these ordering ideas makes
1000 queens feasible
Demo: Coloring -- Backtracking + Forward Checking + Ordering
