Knowledge Preconditions for Actions and Plans

Abstract

Agents who operate in complex environments must often construct plans on the basis of incomp~ete knowl~ge. In such situations, the successful agent ~ust mcorporate mto his plans actions which obtain. infox:manon. These plans are intrinsically sketchy to begm w1th and become more specified as the agent proceeds thro~gh ~is plan. A the?IY which allows for such flexible planmng will have to proVIde solutions to two problems: (1) how can an agent reason th~t he knows how to perform an action? (Knowledge Preconditions Problem for Actions) and (2) if an agent must construct an underspecified plan due to incomplete kno:ovledge, when can we say that he can successfully execute h1s plan? (Knowledge Preconditions Problem for Plans) This paper provides solutions to h?th these problei?s. We develop a robust and highly ~xpress1Ve t!teory of ac~on and planning which allows for acnons ofv~g granulanty, primitive as well as complex acts, muln-agent plans, and partially specified plans. We demonstrate tha! this theory lends itself in a natural manner to solunons to the Knowledge Preconditions Problems.