Combining Agents, Answer Sets and PlanningLecture course at
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Lecturer: J.
Dix
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Dates | ||||||||
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Multi Agent Systems, Answer Set Programming and Planning | ||||||||
"Multi-Agent Sytems" is a still growing area which adresses the need to
move from the development of massive programs containing millions of lines of
code, to smaller, modular, pieces of code, where each module performs a well
defined, focused task (rather than thousands of them). "Software agents"
constitute the latest innovation in this trend towards splitting complex
software systems into components. Although there have been developed in the last years a huge variety of techniques and methods related to agents, a well-defined theoretical foundation unifying the different facets under one umbrella is still missing. After giving a general introduction to agent systems (first two weeks), we introduce the paradigm of Answer Set Programming, which evolved out of deductive databases in the last 10 years and constitutes an important branch of knowledge representation and reasoning. It is independent of agent systems, but we try to show in the last week of the course how it can be used in the agent area. We then describe a particular agent system: IMPACT (Interactive Maryland Platform of Agents Collaborating Together). It is based on logic programming concepts, but does not rely on a Prolog implementation. Our main notion is that of an agent program (which resembles logic programs) under various semantics that are related to answer sets. In particular, we will give detailed and precise answers to the following important questions:
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Overview | ||||||||
We also show how planning with hierarchical task networks can be nicely captured in this framework and efficiently implemented using an underlying ASP engine. This is ongoing research (more updated information can be obtained from HTN Planning via ASP). Finally, we use ASP planning as a debugging tool in agent systems: we monitor agents by comparing the message flow with an associated planning problem and detecting any deviations from the original plan. |
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Here are some interesting links: | ||||||||
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Juergen Dix |