Decision Making in an Embedded Reasoning System

The development of reasoning systems that can reason and plan in a continuously changing environment is emerging as an important area of research in Arti cial In telligence This paper describes some of the features of a Procedural Reasoning System PRS that enables it to operate e ectively in such environments The basic system design is rst described and it is shown how this architecture supports both goal directed reasoning and the ability to react rapidly to unanticipated changes in the en vironment The decision making capabili ties of the system are then discussed and it is indicated how the system integrates these components in a manner that takes account of the bounds on both resources and knowledge that typify most real time operations The system has been applied to handling malfunctions on the space shut tle threat assessment and the control of an autonomous robot