Efficient Implementation of Pattern Database Heuristics for Classical Planning

Abstract

Despite their general success in the heuristic search community, pattern database (PDB) heuristics have, until very recently, not been used by the most successful classical planning systems. We describe a new efficient implementation of pattern database heuristics within the Fast Downward planner. A planning system using this implementation is competitive with the state of the art in optimal planning, significantly improving over results from the previous best PDB heuristic implementation in planning.