A Global Filtering Algorithm for Handling Systems of Quadratic Equations and Inequations

This paper introduces a new filtering algorithm for handling systems of quadratic equations and inequations. Such constraints are widely used to model distance relations in numerous application areas ranging from robotics to chemistry. Classical filtering algorithms are based upon local consistencies and thus, are unable to achieve a significant pruning of the domains of the variables occurring in quadratic constraints systems. The drawback of these approaches comes from the fact that the constraints are handled independently. We introduce here a global filtering algorithm that works on a tight linear relaxation of the quadratic constraints. First experimentations show that this new algorithm yields a much more effective pruning of the domains than local consistency filtering algorithms.