A General Multi-agent Epistemic Planner Based on Higher-order Belief Change

A General Multi-agent Epistemic Planner Based on Higher-order Belief Change

Xiao Huang, Biqing Fang, Hai Wan, Yongmei Liu

Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Main track. Pages 1093-1101. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2017/152

In recent years, multi-agent epistemic planning has received attention from both dynamic logic and planning communities. Existing implementations of multi-agent epistemic planning are based on compilation into classical planning and suffer from various limitations, such as generating only linear plans, restriction to public actions, and incapability to handle disjunctive beliefs. In this paper, we propose a general representation language for multi-agent epistemic planning where the initial KB and the goal, the preconditions and effects of actions can be arbitrary multi-agent epistemic formulas, and the solution is an action tree branching on sensing results.To support efficient reasoning in the multi-agent KD45 logic, we make use of a normal form called alternative cover disjunctive formula (ACDF). We propose basic revision and update algorithms for ACDF formulas. We also handle static propositional common knowledge, which we call constraints. Based on our reasoning, revision and update algorithms, adapting the PrAO algorithm for contingent planning from the literature, we implemented a multi-agent epistemic planner called MAEP. Our experimental results show the viability of our approach.
Keywords:
Knowledge Representation, Reasoning, and Logic: Action, Change and Causality
Knowledge Representation, Reasoning, and Logic: Belief Change
Planning and Scheduling: Theoretical Foundations of Planning
Knowledge Representation, Reasoning, and Logic: Reasoning about Knowlege and Belief