The company’s core software platform, called Comet, is the brainchild of Pascal Van Hentenryck, a professor in the Optimization Laboratory at Brown’s renowned Department of Computer Science. Now the startup’s chief technology officer, Van Hentenryck is one of the originators of “constraint programming,” a school of software design that emerged in the 1990s. Constraint programming is built around a form of logic that seeks general answers (within a certain range of values or constraints) rather than specific numerical solutions to mathematical problems.

Comet uses constraint programming, along with a form of constraint-based search and a kitchen sink’s worth of other techniques, to come up with cost-saving answers to data-rich problems. In situations like the oil-rig helicopter scheduling problem—or, say, the question of how best to deploy a staff of power-line repair technicians to restore electrical service after a storm—Comet doesn’t try to find the best solution possible, Hentenryck explains. That would take too long. Instead, it aims for a “good enough” solution—or at least one that’s better than what humans could come up with on their own.

Full Story: Getting Better Answers Faster: Providence Software Startup Dynadec Goes Way Beyond the Traveling Salesman Problem Source: xconomy, June 15th, 2009 Author: Wade Roush Added on November 11th, 2009 at 10:44 am, by Matt Mikula