PDDL+ Planning with Temporal Pattern Databases

Wiktor Mateusz Piotrowski, Maria Fox, Derek Long, Daniele Magazzeni, Fabio Mercorio

Abstract: The introduction of PDDL+ allowed more accurate representations of complex real-world problems of interest to the scientific community. However, PDDL+ problems are notoriously challenging to planners, requiring more advanced heuristics. We introduce the Temporal Pattern Database (TPDB), a new domain-independent heuristic technique designed for PDDL+ domains with mixed discrete/continuous behaviour, non-linear system dynamics, processes, and events. The pattern in the TPDB is obtained through an abstraction based on time and state discretisation. Our approach combines constraint relaxation and abstraction techniques, and uses solutions to the relaxed problem, as a guide to solving the concrete problem with a discretisation fine enough to satisfy the continuous model's constraints.