Representing Iterative Loops for Decision Theoretic Planning (Preliminary Report)

Extending Theories of Action: Formal Theory and Practical Applications

Volume

Papers from the 1995 AAAI Spring Symposium

Contents

Many planning problems are most naturally solved using an interative loop of actions. For example, a natural plan to unload a truckload of boxes is to repeatedly remove a box until the truck is empty. The problem of planning with loops has been investigated in the context of classical planning [Wilkins, 1988] as well as in the context of reactive planning [Musliner, 1994] but not for decision-theoretic planning. This paper discusses representing iterative loops for decisiontheoretic planning. We present a representation of actions of the form "Repeat the following action until condition is satisfied." We address the problem of guaranteeing that such loops will terminate. Finally we discuss how to abstract iterative constructs in order to limit the number of chronicles generated in plan projection.