Motion planning in the presence of directional and regional avoidance constraints using nonlinear, anisotropic, harmonic potential fields: a physical metaphor

Motion planning, or goal-oriented, context-sensitive, intelligent control is essential if an agent is to act in a useful manner. This paper suggests a new class of motion planners that can mark a constrained trajectory to a target zone in an environment that need not necessarily be a priori known. The novelty of the suggested planner lies in its ability to enforce region avoidance and direction satisfaction constraints jointly. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time that directional constraints have been addressed in the motion planning literature. To build such a planner, the potential field approach is used for inducing the control action. In addition, to cope with the presence of the above constraints (in particular, the directional constraints), a new type of potential field, called the nonlinear anisotropic harmonic potential field, is suggested. The planner has applications in traffic management and operations research among others. Development of the approach, proofs of correctness, and simulation results are supplied.     

Using Many-Sorted Logic in the Object-Oriented Data Model for Fast Robot Task Planning

Search space explosion is a critical problem in robot task planning. This problem limits current robot task planners to solve only simple block world problems and task planning in a real robot working environment to be impractical. This problem is mainly due to the lack of utilization of domain information in task planning. In this paper, we describe a fast task planner for indoor robot applications that effectively uses domain information to speed up the planning process. In this planner, domain information is explicitly represented in an object-oriented data model (OODM) that uses many-sorted logic (MSL) representation. The OODM is convenient for the management of complex data and many-sorted logic is effective for pruning in the rule search process. An inference engine is designed to take advantage of the salient features of these two techniques for fast task planning. A simulation example and complexity analysis are given to demonstrate the advantage of the proposed task planner.     

Improving the reliability of artificial intelligence planningsystems by analyzing their failure recovery

As planning technology improves, artificial intelligence planners are being embedded in increasingly complicated environments: ones that are particularly challenging even for human experts. Consequently, failure is becoming both increasingly likely for these systems (due to the difficult and dynamic nature of the new environments) and increasingly important to address (due to the systems' potential use on real world applications). The paper describes the development of a failure recovery component for a planner in a complex simulated environment and a procedure (called failure recovery analysis) for assisting programmers in debugging that planner. The failure recovery design is iteratively enhanced and evaluated in a series of experiments. Failure recovery analysis is described and demonstrated on an example from the Phoenix planner. The primary advantage of these approaches over existing approaches is that they are based on only a weak model of the planner and its environment, which makes them most suitable when the planner is being developed. By integrating them, failure recovery and failure recovery analysis improve the reliability of the planner by repairing failures during execution and identifying failures due to bugs in the planner and failure recovery itself     

To Plan or to Simply React? An Experimental Study of Action Planning in a Game Environment

Many contemporary computer games, notably action and role‐playing games, represent an interesting class of navigation‐intensive dynamic real‐time simulations inhabited by autonomous intelligent virtual agents (IVAs). Although higher level reasoning of IVAs in these domains seems suited for action planning, planning is not widely adopted in existing games and similar applications. Moreover, statistically rigorous study measuring performance of planners in decision making in a game‐like domain is missing. Here, five classical planners were connected to the virtual environment of Unreal Development Kit along with a planner for delete‐free domains (only positive preconditions and positive effects). Performance of IVAs employing those planners and IVAs with reactive architecture was measured on a class of game‐inspired test environments of various sizes and under different levels of external interference. The analysis has shown that planning agents outperform reactive agents if (i) the size of the problem is small or if (b) the environment changes are either hostile to the agent or infrequent. In delete‐free domains, specialized approaches are inferior to classical planners because the lower expressivity of delete‐free domains results in lower plan quality. These results can help to determine when planning is advantageous in games and for IVAs control in other dynamic real‐time environments.     

Sampling-Based Roadmap of Trees for Parallel Motion Planning

This paper shows how to effectively combine a sampling-based method primarily designed for multiple-query motion planning [probabilistic roadmap method (PRM)] with sampling-based tree methods primarily designed for single-query motion planning (expansive space trees, rapidly exploring random trees, and others) in a novel planning framework that can be efficiently parallelized. Our planner not only achieves a smooth spectrum between multiple-query and single-query planning, but it combines advantages of both. We present experiments which show that our planner is capable of solving problems that cannot be addressed efficiently with PRM or single-query planners. A key advantage of our planner is that it is significantly more decoupled than PRM and sampling-based tree planners. Exploiting this property, we designed and implemented a parallel version of our planner. Our experiments show that our planner distributes well and can easily solve high-dimensional problems that exhaust resources available to single machines and cannot be addressed with existing planners.     

On the predictability of domain‐independent temporal planners

Temporal planning is a research discipline that addresses the problem of generating a totally or a partially ordered sequence of actions that transform the environment from some initial state to a desired goal state, while taking into account time constraints and actions' duration. For its ability to describe and address temporal constraints, temporal planning is of critical importance for a wide range of real‐world applications. Predicting the performance of temporal planners can lead to significant improvements in the area, as planners can then be combined in order to boost the performance on a given set of problem instances. This paper investigates the predictability of the state‐of‐the‐art temporal planners by introducing a new set of temporal‐specific features and exploiting them for generating classification and regression empirical performance models (EPMs) of considered planners. EPMs are also tested with regard to their ability to select the most promising planner for efficiently solving a given temporal planning problem. Our extensive empirical analysis indicates that the introduced set of features allows to generate EPMs that can effectively perform algorithm selection, and the use of EPMs is therefore a promising direction for improving the state of the art of temporal planning, hence fostering the use of planning in real‐world applications.     

基于混合感知信息的路径规划模型

针对动态未知环境下的自主虚拟人实时避障问题,提出一种基于混合感知信息的路径规划模型。该模型由全局规划器和局部规划器组成,全局规划器依据已知环境信息先行规划出优化的运动路线,局部规划器通过对人类的规划行为进行分析,建立用于局部动态规划的运动代价评估函数,实现虚拟人在动态未知场景中的智能规划行为。实验结果表明,该模型能保证实时性,模拟符合人类特征的规划 行为。     

智能规划器StepByStep的研究和开发

智能规划器是智能规划研究成果的重要表现形式,规划器的求解效率和规划质量是智能规划理论研究的直接反映.首先介绍智能规划器的一般结构和StepByStep规划器的总体结构,然后详细阐述StepByStep规划器各组成部分所采用的方法和策略,定义谓词知识树来提取领域知识.在谓词知识树的基础上定义谓词规划树,并用各种策略来提高规划树的生成效率.在谓词规划树的基础上设计StepByStep的规划策略,最后用8个规划器对3个具有代表性的基准规划领域及其规划问题进行实际的求解实验,分析了StepByStep规划器在求解效率和规划质量上的具体表现.实验数据表明,StepByStep规划器的规划策略对3个不同规划领域都具有很好的指导作用,验证了领域知识在规划求解过程中的实际价值.     

Planning in highly dynamic environments: an anytime approach for planning under time constraints

In this paper, we present a novel and domain-independent planner aimed at working in highly dynamic environments with time constraints. The planner follows the anytime principles: a first solution can be quickly computed and the quality of the final plan is improved as long as time is available. This way, the planner can provide either fast reactions or very good quality plans depending on the demands of the environment. As an on-line planner, it also offers important advantages: our planner allows the plan to start its execution before it is totally generated, unexpected events are efficiently tackled during execution, and sensing actions allow the acquisition of required information in partially observable domains. The planning algorithm is based on problem decomposition and relaxation techniques. The traditional relaxed planning graph has been adapted to this on-line framework by considering information about sensing actions and action costs. Results also show that our planner is competitive with other top-performing classical planners.     

Advanced CNC system with in-process feed-rate optimisation

Tight quality requirements and stringent customer demands are the main thrust behind the development of new generation machine tool controllers that are more universal, adaptable and interoperable. The development of some international standards such as STEP and STEP-NC presents a vision for intelligent CNC machining. Implementation of STEP-NC enabled Machine Condition Monitoring (MCM) is presented in this paper. The system allows optimisation during machining in order to shorten machining time and increase product quality. In the system, an optiSTEP-NC, an AECopt controller and a Knowledge-Based Evaluation (KBE) module have been developed. The aim of the optiSTEP-NC system is to perform initial feed-rate optimisation based on STEP-NC data to assist process planners in assigning appropriate machining parameters. AECopt acts as a connector between the process planner and machining environment with the intention to provide adaptive and automatic in-process machining optimisation. KBE based-MTConnect is responsible for obtaining machining know-how. Optimisation is performed before, during or after machining operations, based on the data collected and monitored such as machining vibration, acceleration and jerk, cutting power and feed-rate.     

An architecture for a self-improving instructional planner for intelligent tutoring systems

Machine instructional planners use changing and uncertain data to incrementally configure plans and control the execution and dynamic refinement of these plans. Current instructional planners cannot adequately plan, replan, and monitor the delivery of instruction. This is due in part to the fact that current instructional planners are incapable of planning in a global context, developing competing plans in parallel, monitoring their planning behavior, and dynamically adapting their control behavior. In response to these and other deficiencies of instructional planners a generic system architecture based on the blackboard model was implemented. This self-improving instructional planner (SUP) dynamically creates instructional plans, requests execution of these plans, replans, and improves its planning behavior based on a student's responses to tutoring. Global planning was facilitated by explicitly representing decisions about past, current, and future plans on a global data structure called the plan blackboard. Planning in multiple worlds is facilitated by labeling plan decisions by the context in which they were generated. Plan monitoring was implemented as a set of monitoring knowledge sources. The flexible control capability for instructional planner was adapted from the blackboard architecture BB1. The explicit control structure of SUP enabled complex and flexible planning behavior while maintaining a simple planning architecture.     

智能空间下基于分层任务网络的服务机器人任务规划

针对在复杂、动态的家庭环境下,如何让机器人获取足够多的环境信息并根据环境信息进行自主的任务规划,提出了智能空间技术支持下基于分层任务网络的服务机器人任务规划方案.利用智能空间技术为机器人提供充足的环境上下文信息,用基于分层任务网络设计的JSHOP2规划器执行机器人任务规划.为了提高机器人任务规划的自主性和智能性,在规划领域文件中加入不同的模板信息,使机器人具有根据环境的不同自动对任务进行调整的能力.仿真实验结果表明利用该方法能够有效地提高机器人任务规划的性能.     

A hybrid system for planning the development level of resort

In today’s world, a resort is a popular place that provides not only relaxation and recreation but also beautiful surroundings, high quality food, even facilities to exercise and do other healthy activities. Planning the development level is one of the more important processes in a resort development project. However, planners often subjectively overestimate the project or cater to the preferences of the investors, resulting in an over-developed or imbalanced development. This paper provides a system that helps the planner to search for near-optimal amenity development level. Integrating genetic algorithms and simulation, it employs a dual-loop optimization model to propose advice to be used in the planning stage. Because the complex and dynamic analysis is done by the system instead of by the planner, it speeds up the decision-making process of the planning stage.     

A Fast Approach for Robot Motion Planning

This paper describes a new approach to robot motion planning that combines the end-point motion planning with joint trajectory planning for collision avoidance of the links. Local and global methods are proposed for end-point motion planning. The joint trajectory planning is achieved through a pseudoinverse kinematic formulation of the problem. This approach enables collision avoidance of the links by a fast null-space vector computation. The power of the proposed planner derives from: its speed; the good properties of the potential function for end-point motion planning; and from the simultaneous avoidance of the links collision, kinematic singularities, and local minima of the potential function. The planner is not defined over computationally expensive configuration space and can be applied for real-time applications. The planner shows to be faster than many previous planners and can be applied to robots with many degrees of freedom. The effectiveness of the proposed local and global planning methods as well as the general robot motion planning approach have been experimented using the computer-simulated robots. Some of the simulation results are included in this paper.     

Intelligent Cooperative Control Architecture: A Framework for Performance Improvement Using Safe Learning

Planning for multi-agent systems such as task assignment for teams of limited-fuel unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is challenging due to uncertainties in the assumed models and the very large size of the planning space. Researchers have developed fast cooperative planners based on simple models (e.g., linear and deterministic dynamics), yet inaccuracies in assumed models will impact the resulting performance. Learning techniques are capable of adapting the model and providing better policies asymptotically compared to cooperative planners, yet they often violate the safety conditions of the system due to their exploratory nature. Moreover they frequently require an impractically large number of interactions to perform well. This paper introduces the intelligent Cooperative Control Architecture (iCCA) as a framework for combining cooperative planners and reinforcement learning techniques. iCCA improves the policy of the cooperative planner, while reduces the risk and sample complexity of the learner. Empirical results in gridworld and task assignment for fuel-limited UAV domains with problem sizes up to 9 billion state-action pairs verify the advantage of iCCA over pure learning and planning strategies.     

DPP: An agent-based approach for distributed process planning

A changing shop floor environment characterized by larger variety of products in smaller batch sizes requires creating an intelligent and dynamic process planning system that is responsive and adaptive to the rapid adjustment of production capacity and functionality. In response to the requirement, this research proposes a new methodology of distributed process planning (DPP). The primary focus of this paper is on the architecture of the new process planning approach, using multi-agent negotiation and cooperation. The secondary focus is on the other supporting technologies such as machining feature-based planning and function block-based control. Different from traditional methods, the proposed approach uses two-level decision-making—supervisory planning and operation planning. The former focuses on product data analysis, machine selection, and machining sequence planning, while the latter considers the detailed working steps of the machining operations inside of each process plan and is accomplished by intelligent NC controllers. By the nature of decentralization, the DPP shows promise of improving system performance within the continually changing shop floor environment.