Tackling the Partner Units Configuration Problem

The Partner Units Problem is a type of configuration problem, that frequently occurs in industry. Unfortunately, it can be shown that in the general case (the optimization version of) the problem is intractable. In this technical report we identify a tractable class of problem instances that can be solved by a novel algorithm exploiting the notion of a path decomposition. We also present and evaluate encodings for the general version of the problem in the optimization frameworks of answer set programming, propositional satisfiability testing, constraint solving, and integer programming

Tackling the Partner Units Configuration Problem ∗

The Partner Units Problem is a specific type of configuration problem with important applications in the area of surveillance and security. In this work we show that a special case of the problem, that is of great interest to our partners in industry, can directly be tackled via a structural problem decompostion method. Combining these theoretical insights with general purpose AI techniques such as constraint satisfaction and SAT solving proves to be particularly effective in practice.