A Simple Approach to Solving Cooperative Path-Finding as Propositional Satisfiability Works Well

Abstract

This paper addresses makespan optimal solving of cooperative path-finding problem (CPF) by translating it to propositional satisfiability (SAT). A novel very simple SAT encoding of CPF is proposed and compared with exist-ing elaborate encodings.

The conducted experimental evaluation shown that the simple design of the encoding allows solving it faster than existing encodings for CPF in cases with higher density of agents.

Keywords

• cooperative path-finding (CPF)
• propositional satisfiability (SAT)
• SAT encodings
• A*