Abstraction in Situation Calculus Action Theories

Authors

  • Bita Banihashemi York University
  • Giuseppe De Giacomo Sapienza Universita di Roma
  • Yves Lesperance York University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v31i1.10693

Keywords:

Reasoning About Action, Situation Calculus, Abstraction, Agent, Bisimulation, Refinement Mapping

Abstract

We develop a general framework for agent abstraction based on the situation calculus and the ConGolog agent programming language. We assume that we have a high-level specification and a low-level specification of the agent, both represented as basic action theories. A refinement mapping specifies how each high-level action is implemented by a low-level ConGolog program and how each high-level fluent can be translated into a low-level formula. We define a notion of sound abstraction between such action theories in terms of the existence of a suitable bisimulation between their respective models. Sound abstractions have many useful properties that ensure that we can reason about the agent's actions (e.g., executability, projection, and planning) at the abstract level, and refine and concretely execute them at the low level. We also characterize the notion of complete abstraction where all actions (including exogenous ones) that the high level thinks can happen can in fact occur at the low level.

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Published

2017-02-12

How to Cite

Banihashemi, B., De Giacomo, G., & Lesperance, Y. (2017). Abstraction in Situation Calculus Action Theories. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 31(1). https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v31i1.10693

Issue

Section

AAAI Technical Track: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning