COA Modeling with Probabilistic Ontologies

Planning during complex endeavors is a daunting task in many aspects. An important one is the representation of shared intent, which is an open research topic focused on expressing a common picture among different planning systems with distinct languages, and sometimes disparate problem solving methodologies. The common approach is to use a translator between the order/request message and the planning system, which doesn’t convey all the elements that are necessary to support the planning task. The present research proposes to address this issue by the use of a semantic layer as an interface among different planning systems, which not only improves interoperability but also provides support for pruning the search space before the information is sent to the planning system. The layer is based on a probabilistic ontology, which provides shared intent description as well as formalization of the operational domain and of the planning problem, including a principled representation of the involved uncertainty. The proposed scheme supports previous analysis of the search space in order to send to the planning system a concise set of tasks that will contribute to reach the desired end state. Keywords—Interoperability, Automated Planning, Probabilistic Ontology.