Maintaining Consistency in Quantitative Temporal Constraint Networks for Planning and Scheduling

A module for quantitative constraint propagation forms the core of any problem solving architecture devoted to planning and scheduling in realistic applications. This paper deals with temporal constraint propagation in quantitative networks. We are interested in developing a module that efficiently checks the consistency of an incrementally built temporalized solution. The paper presents a clean definition of the consistency checking problem in temporal networks and describes an algorithm that is correct and complete with respect to such a definition. A sufficient condition for inconsistency is also presented which is useful for improving the algorithm, and the computational complexity of the approach as a whole is discussed.

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