Constraint models for the covering test problem

Abstract

Covering arrays can be applied to the testing of software, hardware and advanced materials, and to the effects of hormone interaction on gene expression. In this paper we develop constraint programming models of the problem of finding an optimal covering array. Our models exploit global constraints, multiple viewpoints and symmetry-breaking constraints. We show that compound variables, representing tuples of variables in our original model, allow the constraints of this problem to be represented more easily and hence propagate better. With our best integrated model, we are able to either prove the optimality of existing bounds or find new optimal solutions, for arrays of moderate size. Local search on a SAT-encoding of the model is able to find improved solutions and bounds for larger problems.