Docent lecture in computing science
(docentföreläsning i ämnet datavetenskap):

             Constraint Programming for Packing Problems
By:
                            Mats Carlsson
                      http://www.sics.se/~matsc/
             Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS)
On:
                     Monday 9th of February 2009
                  from 14:00 to 14:45 in room 1111
          of http://www.polacksbacken.uu.se/index_itc.shtml


The lecture will be given in English.

Chairperson
(ämnesansvarig professor): Prof. Tore Risch

Representative of the docent committee
(representant från docenturnämnden): Prof. Maciej Klimek


Abstract: 

In manufacturing industry, it is not unusual for components to be
transported from a warehouse at location A to a factory at location B,
where products are assembled from the components.  Thus the components
must be packed in containers and vehicles in such a way that packing
and unpacking is convenient and that transportation is safe and uses a
minimal number of containers and vehicles.  Furthermore, components
cannot be packed arbitrarily: heavy parts must not be placed on top of
fragile ones, piles must be stable, etc.  Packing rules and guidelines
are typically written as natural language statements, if they exist at
all.  If they were available in machine-readable form, written in a
formal language, it would allow to develop a whole range of useful
software for verification, generation and visualization of packing
plans.

In the lecture, I will describe a constraint programming based
approach to handling optimization as well as rule compliance in
packing problems.  At the heart of the approach lies a new global
constraint, geost, that is being proposed for this purpose.