Propagating Regular Counting with Lazy Clause Generation

DFA vs counter-DFA for finite domain satisfaction problems

Bachelor Thesis (2026)
Author(s)

D.G.S. Ravensbergen (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

Contributor(s)

E. Demirović – Mentor (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

I.C.W.M. Marijnissen – Mentor (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

M.A. Costea – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
More Info
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Publication Year
2026
Language
English
Graduation Date
23-06-2026
Awarding Institution
Delft University of Technology
Project
CSE3000 Research Project
Programme
Computer Science and Engineering
Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
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Abstract

cDFAs offer a more natural encoding of counting regular patterns—a prevalent problem in timetabling and sequencing—than widely-used DFAs. A cDFA-based propagator for finite domain constraint solving has been shown to solve satisfaction problems faster and make more propagations than the decomposition of a DFA-based regular constraint. This paper extends that algorithm with explanations for lazy clause generation and shows that it often solves satisfaction problems faster than a DFA-based regular constraint both decomposed and propagated, even though the explanations are simple and nogood quality is worse. Additionally, this paper showcases a generator for cDFAs and DFAs that are equivalent to each other to aid comparison of the constraints

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