Edge Matching Puzzles as Hard SAT/CSP Benchmarks

Recently, edge matching puzzles, an NP-complete problem, have received, thanks to money-prized contests, considerable attention from wide audiences. This paper studies edge matching puzzles focusing on providing generation models of problem instances of variable hardness and on its resolution through the application of SAT and CSP techniques. From the generation side, we also identify the phase transition phenomena for each model. As solving methods, we employ both; SAT solvers through the translation to a SAT formula, and two ad-hoc CSP solvers we have developed, with different levels of consistency, employing generic and specialized heuristics. Finally, we conducted an extensive experimental investigation to identify the hardest generation models and the best performing solving techniques.

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