Time-Sensitive Planning Using Point-Interval Logic

This paper presents an application of Point-Interval logic (PIL) for the problem of planning timesensitive aspects of a mission. The logic incorporates both point and interval structures of time associated with mission activities and also provides for qualitative and quantitative descriptions of temporal requirements among mission activities. An algorithm is presented that extends the inference engine of PIL for mission planning application. The planning approach is demonstrated with the help of a small illustrative mission planning problem with non-trivial temporal constraints. The temporal formalism with its descriptive input language, an inference engine for reasoning about generated plans, and the planning algorithm has been implemented in the form of a software tool.