INDSET: A DECOMPOSITION TECHNIQUE FOR CSPS USING MAXIMAL INDEPENDENT SETS AND ITS INTEGRATION WITH LOCAL SEARCH

We introduce INDSET, a technique for decomposing a Constraint Satisfaction Prob-lem (CSP) by identifying a maximal independent set in the constraint graph of the CSP. We demonstrate empirically that INDSET reduces the complexity of solving the CSP, and yields compact and robust solutions. We discuss how to integrate this decomposition tech-nique with stochastic local search (SLS), and evaluate SLS+INDSET, which combines the two. We discuss the benefit of identifying dangling components of the decomposed con-straint graph, and evaluate SLS+INDSET+DANGLES, a strategy that exploits this structural improvement. We explore the possibility of applying INDSET recursively. We explore the capabilities and limitations of INDSET, and provide insights on the combination of INDSET with backtrack search and the detection of local interchangeability. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I express gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Berthe Y. Choueiry, and the rest of my committee, Dr. Matthew Dwyer, Dr. Steve Goddard, and Dr. Sylvia Wiegand for their time an