Commitment Strategies in Planning: A Comparative Analysis

In this paper we compare the ut i l i ty of different commitment strategies in planning. Under a "least commitment strategy", plans are represented as part ia l orders and operators are ordered only when interactions are detected. We investigate claims of the inherent advantages of planning w i t h part ia l orders, as compared to planning w i t h tota l orders. By focusing our analysis on the issue of operator ordering commi tment , we are able to carry out a rigorous comparative analysis of two planners. We show that partial-order planning can be more efficient than total-order planning, but we also show that this is not necessarily so.