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Tackling the Qualification Problem using Fluent Dependency Constraints[Note 1. Address correspondence to the authors at the Department of ...]
Author(s) -
Kvarnström Jonas,
Doherty Patrick
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
computational intelligence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.353
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1467-8640
pISSN - 0824-7935
DOI - 10.1111/0824-7935.00111
Subject(s) - computer science , nondeterministic algorithm , action (physics) , frame problem , modular design , context (archaeology) , artificial intelligence , dependency (uml) , circumscription , theoretical computer science , frame (networking) , representation (politics) , situation calculus , programming language , paleontology , telecommunications , physics , quantum mechanics , politics , political science , law , biology
In the area of formal reasoning about action and change, one of the fundamental representation problems is providing concise modular and incremental specifications of action types and world models, where instantiations of action types are invoked by agents such as mobile robots. Provided the preconditions to the action are true, their invocation results in changes to the world model concomitant with the goal‐directed behavior of the agent. One particularly difficult class of related problems, collectively called the qualification problem, deals with the need to find a concise incremental and modular means of characterizing the plethora of exceptional conditions that might qualify an action, but generally do not, without having to explicitly enumerate them in the preconditions to an action. We show how fluent dependency constraints together with the use of durational fluents can be used to deal with problems associated with action qualification using a temporal logic for action and change called TAL‐Q. We demonstrate the approach using action scenarios that combine solutions to the frame, ramification, and qualification problems in the context of actions with duration, concurrent actions, nondeterministic actions, and the use of both Boolean and non‐Boolean fluents. The circumscription policy used for the combined problems is reducible to the first‐order case.