Intentions In Means-End Planning (Dissertation Proposal)

This proposal discusses the use of the intentions of the actor in performing means-end reasoning. In doing so, it will show that preconditions and applicability conditions in existing systems are ill-defined and intrinsically encode situational information that prevents intentions from playing a role in the planning process. While the former problem can be fixed, the latter cannot. Therefore, I argue that preconditions should be eliminated from action representation. In their place, I suggest explicit representation of intention, situated reasoning about the results of action, and robust failure mechanisms. I then describe a system, the Intentional Planning System (ItPlanS), which embodies these ideas, compare ItPlanS to other systems, and propose future directions for this work. Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MSCIS-92-73. This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/cis_reports/482 Intentions in Means-Ends Planning (Dissertation Proposal) MS-CIS-92-73 LINC LAB 235