Lazy branching for constraint satisfaction

When solving a constraint satisfaction problem using a systematic backtracking method the branching scheme normally selects a variable to which a value is assigned. In this paper we refer to such strategies as eager branching schemes. These contrast with the alternative class of novel branchings considered in this paper whereby having selected a variable we proceed by removing values from its domain. In this paper we study such lazy branching schemes in depth. We define three lazy branchings based on k-way, binary and split branching. We show how each can be incorporated into MAC, and define a novel value ordering heuristic that is suitable in this setting. Our results show that lazy branching can significantly out-perform traditional branching schemes across a variety of problem classes. While, in general, neither lazy nor eager branching dominates the other, our results clearly show that choosing the correct branching scheme for a given problem instances can significantly reduce search effort. Therefore, we implemented a variety of branching portfolios for choosing amongst all of the branching strategies studied in this paper. The results demonstrate that a good branching scheme can be automatically selected for a given problem instances and that including lazy branching schemes in the portfolio significantly reduces runtime.