Toward an automaton Constraint for Local Search

We explore the idea of using finite automata to implement new constraints for local search (this is already a successful technique in constraint-based global search). We show how it is possible to maintain incrementally the violations of a constraint and its decision variables from an automaton that describes a ground checker for that constraint. We establish the practicality of our approach idea on real-life personnel rostering problems, and show that it is competitive with the approach of [Pralong, 2007].