102 research outputs found
Supervisory Control for Behavior Composition
We relate behavior composition, a synthesis task studied in AI, to
supervisory control theory from the discrete event systems field. In
particular, we show that realizing (i.e., implementing) a target behavior
module (e.g., a house surveillance system) by suitably coordinating a
collection of available behaviors (e.g., automatic blinds, doors, lights,
cameras, etc.) amounts to imposing a supervisor onto a special discrete event
system. Such a link allows us to leverage on the solid foundations and
extensive work on discrete event systems, including borrowing tools and ideas
from that field. As evidence of that we show how simple it is to introduce
preferences in the mapped framework
Parallel behavior composition for manufacturing
A key problem in the manufacture of highlycustomized products is the synthesis of controllers able to manufacture any instance of a given product type on a given production or assembly line. In this paper, we extend classical AI behavior composition to manufacturing settings. We first introduce a novel solution concept for manufacturing composition, target production processes, that are able to manufacture multiple instances of a product simultaneously in a given production plant. We then propose a technique for synthesizing the largest target production process, together with an associated controller for the machines in the plant
DELPHIC: Practical DEL Planning via Possibilities (Extended Version)
Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) provides a framework for epistemic planning
that is capable of representing non-deterministic actions, partial
observability, higher-order knowledge and both factual and epistemic change.
The high expressivity of DEL challenges existing epistemic planners, which
typically can handle only restricted fragments of the whole framework. The goal
of this work is to push the envelop of practical DEL planning, ultimately
aiming for epistemic planners to be able to deal with the full range of
features offered by DEL. Towards this goal, we question the traditional
semantics of DEL, defined in terms on Kripke models. In particular, we propose
an equivalent semantics defined using, as main building block, so-called
possibilities: non well-founded objects representing both factual properties of
the world, and what agents consider to be possible. We call the resulting
framework DELPHIC. We argue that DELPHIC indeed provides a more compact
representation of epistemic states. To substantiate this claim, we implement
both approaches in ASP and we set up an experimental evaluation to compare
DELPHIC with the traditional, Kripke-based approach. The evaluation confirms
that DELPHIC outperforms the traditional approach in space and time
Integrating BPMN and DMN: Modeling and Analysis
AbstractThe operational backbone of modern organizations is the target of business process management, where business process models are produced to describe how the organization should react to events and coordinate the execution of activities so as to satisfy its business goals. At the same time, operational decisions are made by considering internal and external contextual factors, according to decision models that are typically based on declarative, rule-based specifications that describe how input configurations correspond to output results. The increasing importance and maturity of these two intertwined dimensions, those of processes and decisions, have led to a wide range of data-aware models and associated methodologies, such as BPMN for processes and DMN for operational decisions. While it is important to analyze these two aspects independently, it has been pointed out by several authors that it is also crucial to analyze them in combination. In this paper, we provide a native, formal definition of DBPMN models, namely data-aware and decision-aware processes that build on BPMN and DMN S-FEEL, illustrating their use and giving their formal execution semantics via an encoding into Data Petri nets (DPNs). By exploiting this encoding, we then build on previous work in which we lifted the classical notion of soundness of processes to this richer, data-aware setting, and show how the abstraction and verification techniques that were devised for DPNs can be directly used for DBPMN models. This paves the way towards even richer forms of analysis, beyond that of assessing soundness, that are based on the same technique
A Semantic Approach to Decidability in Epistemic Planning (Extended Version)
The use of Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) in multi-agent planning has led to a
widely adopted action formalism that can handle nondeterminism, partial
observability and arbitrary knowledge nesting. As such expressive power comes
at the cost of undecidability, several decidable fragments have been isolated,
mainly based on syntactic restrictions of the action formalism. In this paper,
we pursue a novel semantic approach to achieve decidability. Namely, rather
than imposing syntactical constraints, the semantic approach focuses on the
axioms of the logic for epistemic planning. Specifically, we augment the logic
of knowledge S5 and with an interaction axiom called (knowledge)
commutativity, which controls the ability of agents to unboundedly reason on
the knowledge of other agents. We then provide a threefold contribution. First,
we show that the resulting epistemic planning problem is decidable. In doing
so, we prove that our framework admits a finitary non-fixpoint characterization
of common knowledge, which is of independent interest. Second, we study
different generalizations of the commutativity axiom, with the goal of
obtaining decidability for more expressive fragments of DEL. Finally, we show
that two well-known epistemic planning systems based on action templates, when
interpreted under the setting of knowledge, conform to the commutativity axiom,
hence proving their decidability
Process plan controllers for non-deterministic manufacturing systems
Determining the most appropriate means of producing a given product, i.e., which manufacturing and assembly tasks need to be performed in which order and how, is termed process planning In process planning, abstract manufacturing tasks in a process recipe are matched to available manufacturing resources, e.g., CNC machines and robots, to give an executable process plan. A process plan controller then delegates each operation in the plan to specific manufacturing resources. In this paper we present an approach to the automated computation of process plans and process plan controllers. We extend previous work to support both non-deterministic (i.e., partially controllable) resources, and to allow operations to be performed in parallel on the same part. We show how implicit fairness assumptions can be captured in this setting, and how this impacts the definition of process plans
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