Parallel constraint propagation
Date
2001
Authors
Samosan, Sinesie Calin
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Abstract
Interval constraints is a recently developed method used in numerical computation, and has many applications, such as solving systems of non-linear equations, complex function plotting, etc.
An important aspect of solving a problem in terms of interval constraints is the constraint propagation process, which aims to eliminate the inconsistent values from the candidate intervals for the unknowns by repeatedly applying the constraint contraction operator on each primitive constraint. The fact that there is no restriction regarding the order, in which the constraint contractions have to be performed, makes constraint propagation suitable for parallel computation.
This thesis presents a distributed architecture for performing constraint propagation using coordination between a set of cooperative communicating agents. More specifically, the constraint propagation problem is described as a coordination of a set of cooperative agents, each agent having a very specific role in the process of solving the problem.