A compact and efficient SAT-encoding of finite domain CSP

Abstract

A (finite) Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) is a combinatorial problem to find an assignment which satisfies all given constraints over finite domains. A SAT-based CSP solver is a program which solves a CSP by encoding it to SAT and searching solutions by SAT solvers. Remarkable improvements in the efficiency of SAT solvers make SAT-based CSP solvers applicable for solving hard and practical problems. A number of SAT encoding methods have been therefore proposed: direct encoding, support encoding, log encoding, log-support encoding, and order encoding. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.