The AC(C) Language: Integrating Answer Set Programming and Constraint Logic Programming

Combining Answer Set Programming (ASP) and Constraint Logic Programming (CLP) can create a more powerful language for knowledge representation and reasoning. The language AC(C) is designed to integrate ASP and CLP. Compared with existing integration of ASP and CSP, AC(C) allows representing user-defined constraints. Such integration provides great power for applications requiring logical reasoning involving constraints, e.g., temporal planning. In AC(C), user-defined and primitive constraints can be solved by a CLP inference engine while the logical reasoning over those constraints and regular logic literals is solved by an ASP inference engine (i.e., solver). My PhD work includes improving the language AC(C), implementing its faster inference engine and investigating how effective the new system can be used to solve a challenging application, temporal planning.