Filtering, Decomposition and Search Space Reduction for Optimal Sequential Planning

International audienceWe present in this paper a hybrid planning system which combines constraint satisfaction techniques and planning heuris-tics to produce optimal sequential plans. It integrates its own consistency rules and filtering and decomposition mechanisms suitable for planning. Given a fixed bound on the plan length, our planner works directly on a structure related to Graphplan's planning graph. This structure is incrementally built: Each time it is extended, a sequential plan is searched. Different search strategies may be employed. Currently, it is a forward chaining search based on problem decomposition with action sets partitioning. Various techniques are used to reduce the search space, such as memorizing nogood states or estimating goals reachability. In addition, the planner implements two different techniques to avoid enumerating some equivalent action sequences. Empirical evaluation shows that our system is very competitive on many problems, especially compared to other optimal sequential planners

Constructing Conditional Plans by a Theorem-Prover

The research on conditional planning rejects the assumptions that there is no uncertainty or incompleteness of knowledge with respect to the state and changes of the system the plans operate on. Without these assumptions the sequences of operations that achieve the goals depend on the initial state and the outcomes of nondeterministic changes in the system. This setting raises the questions of how to represent the plans and how to perform plan search. The answers are quite different from those in the simpler classical framework. In this paper, we approach conditional planning from a new viewpoint that is motivated by the use of satisfiability algorithms in classical planning. Translating conditional planning to formulae in the propositional logic is not feasible because of inherent computational limitations. Instead, we translate conditional planning to quantified Boolean formulae. We discuss three formalizations of conditional planning as quantified Boolean formulae, and present experimental results obtained with a theorem-prover

Structure and Problem Hardness: Goal Asymmetry and DPLL Proofs in<br> SAT-Based Planning

In Verification and in (optimal) AI Planning, a successful method is to formulate the application as boolean satisfiability (SAT), and solve it with state-of-the-art DPLL-based procedures. There is a lack of understanding of why this works so well. Focussing on the Planning context, we identify a form of problem structure concerned with the symmetrical or asymmetrical nature of the cost of achieving the individual planning goals. We quantify this sort of structure with a simple numeric parameter called AsymRatio, ranging between 0 and 1. We run experiments in 10 benchmark domains from the International Planning Competitions since 2000; we show that AsymRatio is a good indicator of SAT solver performance in 8 of these domains. We then examine carefully crafted synthetic planning domains that allow control of the amount of structure, and that are clean enough for a rigorous analysis of the combinatorial search space. The domains are parameterized by size, and by the amount of structure. The CNFs we examine are unsatisfiable, encoding one planning step less than the length of the optimal plan. We prove upper and lower bounds on the size of the best possible DPLL refutations, under different settings of the amount of structure, as a function of size. We also identify the best possible sets of branching variables (backdoors). With minimum AsymRatio, we prove exponential lower bounds, and identify minimal backdoors of size linear in the number of variables. With maximum AsymRatio, we identify logarithmic DPLL refutations (and backdoors), showing a doubly exponential gap between the two structural extreme cases. The reasons for this behavior -- the proof arguments -- illuminate the prototypical patterns of structure causing the empirical behavior observed in the competition benchmarks

Loosely Coupled Formulations for Automated Planning: An Integer Programming Perspective

We represent planning as a set of loosely coupled network flow problems, where each network corresponds to one of the state variables in the planning domain. The network nodes correspond to the state variable values and the network arcs correspond to the value transitions. The planning problem is to find a path (a sequence of actions) in each network such that, when merged, they constitute a feasible plan. In this paper we present a number of integer programming formulations that model these loosely coupled networks with varying degrees of flexibility. Since merging may introduce exponentially many ordering constraints we implement a so-called branch-and-cut algorithm, in which these constraints are dynamically generated and added to the formulation when needed. Our results are very promising, they improve upon previous planning as integer programming approaches and lay the foundation for integer programming approaches for cost optimal planning

Planification de coût optimal basée sur les CSP pondérés

For planning to come of age, plans must be judged by a measure of quality, such as the total cost of actions. This thesis describes an optimal-cost planner in the classical planning framework except that each action has a cost.We code the extraction of an optimal plan, from a planning graph with a fixed number k of levels, as a weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP). The specific structure of the resulting WCSP means that a state-of-the-art exhaustive solver was able to find an optimal plan in planning graphs containing several thousand nodes.We present several methods for determining a tight bound on the number of planning-graph levels required to ensure finding a globally optimal plan. These include universal notions such as indispensable sets S of actions: every valid plan contains at least one action in S. Different types of indispensable sets can be rapidly detected by solving relaxed planning problems related to the original problem. On extensive trials on benchmark problems, the bound on the number of planning-graph levels was reduced by an average of 60% allowing us to solve many instances to optimality.Thorough experimental investigations demonstrated that using the planning graph in optimal planning is a practical possibility, although not competitive, in terms of computation time, with a recent state-of-the-art optimal planner.Un des challenges actuels de la planification est la résolution de problèmes pour lesquels on cherche à optimiser la qualité d'une solution telle que le coût d'un plan-solution. Dans cette thèse, nous développons une méthode originale pour la planification de coût optimal dans un cadre classique non temporel et avec des actions valuées.Pour cela, nous utilisons une structure de longueur fixée appelée graphe de planification. L'extraction d'une solution optimale, à partir de ce graphe, est codée comme un problème de satisfaction de contraintes pondérées (WCSP). La structure spécifique des WCSP obtenus permet aux solveurs actuels de trouver, pour une longueur donnée, une solution optimale dans un graphe de planification contenant plusieurs centaines de nœuds. Nous présentons ensuite plusieurs méthodes pour déterminer la longueur maximale des graphes de planification nécessaire pour garantir l'obtention d'une solution de coût optimal. Ces méthodes incluent plusieurs notions universelles comme par exemple la notion d'ensembles d'actions indispensables pour lesquels toutes les solutions contiennent au moins une action de l'ensemble. Les résultats expérimentaux effectués montrent que l'utilisation de ces méthodes permet une diminution de 60% en moyenne de la longueur requise pour garantir l'obtention d'une solution de coût optimal. La comparaison expérimentale avec d'autres planificateurs montre que l'utilisation du graphe de planification et des CSP pondérés pour la planification optimale est possible en pratique même si elle n'est pas compétitive, en terme de temps de calcul, avec les planificateurs optimaux récents

Resolution-based methods for linear temporal reasoning

The aim of this thesis is to explore the potential of resolution-based methods for linear temporal reasoning. On the abstract level, this means to develop new algorithms for automated reasoning about properties of systems which evolve in time. More concretely, we will: 1) show how to adapt the superposition framework to proving theorems in propositional Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), 2) use a connection between superposition and the CDCL calculus of modern SAT solvers to come up with an efficient LTL prover, 3) specialize the previous to reachability properties and discover a close connection to Property Directed Reachability (PDR), an algorithm recently developed for model checking of hardware circuits, 4) further improve PDR by providing a new technique for enhancing clause propagation phase of the algorithm, and 5) adapt PDR to automated planning by replacing the SAT solver inside with a planning-specific procedure. We implemented the proposed ideas and provide experimental results which demonstrate their practical potential on representative benchmark sets. Our system LS4 is shown to be the strongest LTL prover currently publicly available. The mentioned enhancement of PDR substantially improves the performance of our implementation of the algorithm for hardware model checking in the multi-property setting. It is expected that other implementations would benefit from it in an analogous way. Finally, our planner PDRplan has been compared with the state-of-the-art planners on the benchmarks from the International Planning Competition with very promising results.Das Ziel dieser Doktorarbeit ist es, das Potential resolutionsbasierter Methoden zur linearer, temporaler Beweisführung zu untersuchen. Von einem abstrakten Gesichtspunkt aus gesehen bedeutet dies, neue Algorithmen über die Eigenschaften von sich zeitlich entwicklenden Systemen im Bereich des automatischen Theorembeweisens zu entwickeln. Konkreter gesagt werden wir 1) aufzeigen, wie sich das Rahmenprogramm der Superposition so anpassen lässt, damit es Theoreme in propositionaler Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) beweist, 2) eine Verbindung zwischen der Superposition und dem CDCL-Kalkül moderner SAT-Solver nutzen, um mit einem effizienten LTL-Prover aufzuwarten, 3) das Vorangegangene auf Erreichbarkeitseigenschaften spezialisieren, und eine starke Verbindung zu der Property Directed Reachability (PDR), einem jüngst eintwickeltem Model-Checking-Algorithmus für Hardware-Schaltkreise, aufzudecken, 4) PDR durch die Einführung neuer Technik verbessern, die die Clause-Propagation-Phase des Algorithmus beschleunigt, und 5) PDR für das automatisierte Planen anpassen, indem wir den inneren SAT-Solver durch eine planungsspezifische Prozedur ersetzen. Wir haben die vorgeschlagenen Ideen implementiert, und es werden experimentelle Ergebnisse angegeben, die das praktische Potential dieser Ideen auf repräsentativen Benchmarks aufzeigt. Es hat sich herausgestellt, dass unser System LS4 der staerkste öffentlich zugängliche LTL-Prover ist. Die erwähnte Erweiterung von PDR verbessern die Leistungsfähigkeit unserer Implementierung des Hardware-Model-Checking-Algorithmus substantiell im Bereich der Multi-Property-Einstellungen. Wir erwarten, dass andere Implementierungen in ähnlicher Weise profitieren würden. Schließlich haben wir viel versprechende Ergebnisse durch den Vergleich unser Planer PDRplan mit anderen state-of-the-art Planer auf den Benchmarks der International Planning Competition erzielt