Aims

• To introduce the basic concepts and terminology of planning
• To give an overview on the main approaches to planning, including the classical approaches as well as recent developments
• To present the strengths and limitations of the different approaches
• Enable the students to read up-to-date research papers in planning

Objectives

• know the main approaches in classical planning as well as recent methods of planning
• be able to understand and to discuss the advantages and limitations of the approaches
• be able to apply the presented planning algorithms to unseen examples
• be able to see the relationship of approaches to mechanised planning and of human planning.
• be able to read, understand, and present a recent research paper of the field.

Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of AI Techniques and Logic. Some programming knowledge in Pop11 is helpful in order to benefit from the implementation examples, but not necessary.

Teaching Methods

The course has two components. In the first, the basic knowledge about planning is presented in a mixture of conventional lectures and exercise classes (together 2 hours per week throughout that part of the course). In the second, each student gives a presentation of a recent research paper.

Assessment

The course will be assessed to 80% by a 2-hour unseen examination in May (on the material of the first component) and to 20% on the basis of the preparation and the presentation of a seminar. Presence of all participants is obligatory for this part of the course.

Recommended Books: Sections on planning in

Title	Author(s)	Publisher	Comments
Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach	Stuart Russell & Peter Norvig	Prentice Hall 1995	Further Reading
Artificial Intelligence, 2nd Edition	Elaine Rich & Kevin Knight	McGraw-Hill 1994	Further Reading
Artificial Intelligence, Third edition	Patrick Henry Winston	Addison-Wesley 1992	Further Reading

The following courses are currently planned, modifications are possible: (Slides and Exercises are available in gzipped PostScript files, during the course, spare copies can be found in the School's library, these should be taken first in order not to waste printer resources. The files will be made readable after the corresponding lectures.)

Week	Lecturer	Content	Slides	Exercises
1	Manfred	Basic notions of planning (Goals, Blocks world, Deductive Planning) Frame Problem, frame axioms (tractability), planning as search (breadth-first search, depth-first search, heuristic search)	l1.ps.gz l1.pdf	e1.ps.gz e1.pdf
2	Manfred	Planning with STRIPS, Representation, Search, Limits (interaction of partial goals, unsolvable problems), Planning for simultaneous goals (Solution to the so-called Sussman anomaly)	l2.ps.gz l2.pdf	e2.ps.gz e2.pdf
3	Manfred	Non-Linear Planning (basic idea and notions, classification and solution of conflicts, critics), Linear vs. non-linear planning	l3.ps.gz l3.pdf	e3.ps.gz e3.pdf
4	Manfred	Hierarchical Planning (Planning with abstraction of situations, Planning with abstraction of operators)	l4.ps.gz l4.pdf	e4.ps.gz e4.pdf
5	Mateja	Increasing the Flexibility in Planning	l5.ps.gz l5.pdf	e5.ps.gz e5.pdf
6	Mateja	Conditional Planning (sensing, dependence on unknown facts)	l6.ps.gz l6.pdf	e6.ps.gz e6.pdf
7	Mateja	Reactivity vs Deliberation	l7.ps.gz l7.pdf	e7.ps.gz e7.pdf
8	Mateja	Distributed Planning	l8.ps.gz l8.pdf	e8.ps.gz e8.pdf
9	Mateja	Multi-agent planning	l9.ps.gz l9.pdf	e9.ps.gz e9.pdf
10	Manfred/Mateja	Revision
EASTER GAP
11	Students	Student presentations
12	Students	Student presentations

You can find some Pop11 programs on general search and STRIPS in the following table. Furthermore there are two examples with OTTER input to demonstrate the idea of the situation calculus.

Topic	Program Fragment
General Search (without loopcheck)	search.p
General Search (with loopcheck)	search-w-loopcheck.p
Problem description of the kitchen problem	kitchen.p
STRIPS	strips.p
Otter Example (without frame axioms)	otter1.in otter1.out
Otter Example (with frame axioms)	otter2.in otter2.out

In the second part of the course, participants of the course will give presentations of research papers from the following list, available as dvi, PostScript, PostScript.
A schedule for the student talks will be made available as ascii, dvi, Postscript, and pdf.
The criteria for assessing the presentations can be found as ascii, dvi, Postscript, and pdf files.
For the two extra lectures necessary to fit in all presentations we've booked on 5th May 11:00-12:00 and on 12th May 11:00-13:00 room Hills 216.