Expecting the Unexpected: Detecting and Reacting to Unplanned-for World States

Ella M. Atkins, Edmund H. Durfee, Kang G. Shin

Abstract: Developing autonomous systems is challenging because complete and correct models do not exist for complex domains such as aircraft flight. Realistic systems bound the state set expanded during planning and compensate for unexpected situations with reactive mechanisms. This abstract describes a method by which a system can determine if it is unprepared for the current world state and a means to successfully respond to such an unhandled state.