Planning and Control in Artificial Intelligence: A Unifying Perspective

The problem of selecting actions in environments that are dynamic and not completely predictable or observable is a central problem in intelligent behavior. In AI, this translates into the problem of designing controllers that can map sequences of observations into actions so that certain goals are achieved. Three main approaches have been used in AI for designing such controllers: the programming approach, where the controller is programmed by hand in a suitable high-level procedural language, the planning approach, where the control is automatically derived from a suitable description of actions and goals, and the learning approach, where the control is derived from a collection of experiences. The three approaches exhibit successes and limitations. The focus of this paper is on the planning approach. More specifically, we present an approach to planning based on various state models that handle various types of action dynamics (deterministic and probabilistic) and sensor feedback (null, partial, and complete). The approach combines high-level representations languages for describing actions, sensors, and goals, mathematical models of sequential decisions for making precise the various planning tasks and their solutions, and heuristic search algorithms for computing those solutions. The approach is supported by a computational tool we have developed that accepts high-level descriptions of actions, sensors, and goals and produces suitable controllers. We also present empirical results and discuss open challenges.