Constraint And Satisfiability-based Planning: an Exploratory Research Workshop (CASP:ER 2025)

Despite the widespread adoption of heuristic search and learning-based approaches in automated planning, Constraint and Satisfiability-based Planning (CSP/SAT-based Planning) remains a viable and promising paradigm. Historically, CSP and SAT approaches have demonstrated strong theoretical foundations and practical success in various domains. However, their usage has diminished in recent years due to the rise of alternative methods. The CASP:ER workshop aims to revisit and reinforce the relevance of CSP/SAT-based planning by showcasing recent advancements, discussing its applicability, and identifying opportunities for renewed adoption.

A surge of research on the topic of CSP/SAT-based planning in recent years has proven that it is far from obsolete. Advances in constraint programming, SAT solvers, and hybrid methodologies suggest that these techniques still have much to offer. The objectives of the workshop are thus as follows: (i) highlight recent breakthroughs in CSP/SAT-based planning and their impact on the field, (ii) explore novel applications where constraint-based planning remains competitive or superior, (iii) foster discussions on integrating CSP/SAT methods with modern AI approaches, such as machine learning and heuristic search (iv) bring together researchers and practitioners interested in constraint-based reasoning for planning, and (v) identify key challenges and future research directions that can rejuvenate interest in CSP/SAT-based planning.

Important Dates

This year’s first edition of CASP:ER will be held on November 11th, 2025, as a workshop co-located with ICAPS 2025. Important dates

  • Paper submission: July 7th, 2025
  • Notification: August 10th, 2025
  • Camera-ready: September 7th, 2025
  • Workshop: November 11th, 2025

Schedule

The CASP:ER workshop is scheduled on November 11, 2025 in Room 4 (40).

[13:30 - 15:00] - Opening Remarks and Session 1

  • 13:30 - 13:40 Introduction of the workshop (10 minutes)
  • 13:40 - 14:00 ASP Planning with PPLTL Goals
    Simon Dowd
  • 14:00 - 14:20 Engineering an LTLf Synthesis Tool
    Alexandre Duret-Lutz, Shufang Zhu, Nir Piterman, Giuseppe De Giacomo, Moshe Y. Vardi
  • 14:20 - 14:40 Depth-Bounded Epistemic Planning
    Alessandro Burigana
  • 14:40 - 15:00 Generalizing Platform-Aware Mission Planning for Infinite-State Timed Transition Systems
    Stefan Panjkovic, Alessandro Cimatti, Andrea Micheli, and Stefano Tonetta

[15:00 - 15:30] - Coffee Break

[15:30 - 17:00] - Session 2 and Open Discussion

  • 15:30 - 15:50 SibylSatOpt: a MaxSAT-based Greedy Optimal Search for TOHTN Planning
    Gaspard Quenard, Damien Pellier, Humbert Fiorino
  • 15:50 - 16:10 Domain-Independent Instance Generation for Classical Planning
    Claudia Grundke, Malte Helmert, Gabriele Röger
  • 16:10 - 16:30 Cost-Optimal Delete-Free Classical Planning via Maximum Satisfiability
    Masood Feyzbakhsh Rankooh, Andreas Niskanen and Matti Järvisalo
  • 16:30 - 16:50 Relaxing non-interference requirements in parallel plans
    Joan Espasa, Miquel Bofill and Mateu Villaret
  • 16:50 - 17:00 Closing remarks

Call for contributions

To foster discussion on and the exploration of research ideas in CSP/SAT-based planning, we accept two types of contributions: previously published work as well as original research.

  1. Abstracts for Presentations. The abstract (1 page, including references) reports on previously published work. The abstract should briefly summarise that work. The submission must include a link to the original publication.
  2. Extended abstracts (5 pages + references) containing original work on CSP- or SAT-based Planning.

Extended abstracts can present recent results, new research directions, challenges and perspectives.

We plan to include all papers in the Proceedings of the event, published at CEUR Workshop Proceedings. CEUR WS proceedings are archival proceedings indexed by DBLP and Scopus.

Submitted papers should use the CASP:ER-specific version of the CEURART LaTeX style. Authors of accepted papers will have the possibility to extend their submissions for the final camera-ready version to eight (8) pages plus references.

Submissions must be in PDF format and will be handled via the EasyChair Conference system.

Program Committee Chairs

  • Gregor Behnke - University of Amsterdam
  • Matteo Cardellini - University of Genova
  • Nicola Gigante - Free University of Bozen-Bolzan
  • Andrea Micheli - Fondazione Bruno Kessler

Contacts

For more information email to any of the program chairs at casper2025@easychair.org