Conditional Planning with External Functions

Davy Van Nieuwenborgh, Thomas Eiter, Dirk Vermeir

Abstract: We introduce the logic-based planning language \({\mathcal{K}^c}\) as an extension of \(\mathcal{K}\)[5]. \(\mathcal{K}^c\) has two advantages upon \(\mathcal{K}\). First, the introduction of external function calls in the rules of a planning description allows the knowledge engineer to describe certain planning domains, e.g. involving complex action effects, in a more intuitive fashion then is possible in \(\mathcal{K}\). Secondly, in contrast to the conformant planning framework \(\mathcal{K}\), \(\mathcal{K}^c\) is formalized as a conditional planning system, which enables \(\mathcal{K}^c\) to solve planning problems that are impossible to express in \(\mathcal{K}\), e.g. involving sensing actions. A prototype implementation of conditional planning with \(\mathcal{K}^c\) is build on top of the \(\textsc{DLV}^\mathcal{K}\) system, and we illustrate its use by some small examples.