Kaiserslautern - Fachbereich Informatik
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Abstraction is one of the most promising approaches to improve the performance of problem solvers. In several domains abstraction by dropping sentences of a domain description - as used in most hierarchical planners - has proven useful. In this paper we present examples which illustrate significant drawbacks of abstraction by dropping sentences. To overcome these drawbacks, we propose a more general view of abstraction involving the change of representation language. We have developed a new abstraction methodology and a related sound and complete learning algorithm that allows the complete change of representation language of planning cases from concrete to abstract. However, to achieve a powerful change of the representation language, the abstract language itself as well as rules which describe admissible ways of abstracting states must be provided in the domain model. This new abstraction approach is the core of PARIS (Plan Abstraction and Refinement in an Integrated System), a system in which abstract planning cases are automatically learned from given concrete cases. An empirical study in the domain of process planning in mechanical engineering shows significant advantages of the proposed reasoning from abstract cases over classical hierarchical planning.^
Recently, the use of abstraction in case-based reasoning (CBR) is getting more and more popular. The basic idea is to supply a CBR system with cases at many different levels of abstraction. When a new problem must be solved, one (or several) 'appropriate' concrete or abstract case are retrieved from the case base and the solution that the case contains is reused to derive a solution for the current problem, e.g. by filling in the details that a retrieved case at some higher level of abstraction does not contain. A major problem that occurs when using this approach is, that for a given new problem, usually several cases, e.g., from different levels of abstraction could be reused to solve the new problem. Choosing a wrong abstract case can slow down the problem solving process or even prevents the problem from being solved.
Hierachical planning can be improved by explanation-based learning (EBL) of abstract plans from detailed, successfully solved planning problems. Abstract plans, expressed in well-established terms of the domain, serve as useful problem decompositions which can drastically reduce the planning complexity. The learned plan abstraction must be valid for a class of planning cases rather than for a single case, to ensure their successful application in a larger spectrum of new situations. A hierarchical organization of the newly learned knowledge must be archieved to overcome the utility problem in EBL. This paper presents a new formal model of shared plan abstraction and the closely related explanation-based procedure S-PABS. Unlike other apporaches to plan abstraction, our model allows a total different terminology to be introduced at the abstract level. Finally, an unsupervised incremental procedure for constructing a hierachy of shared abstract plans is proposed, as a kind of concept formation over explanations.
Abstraction is one of the most promising approaches to improve the performance of problem solvers. Abstraction by dropping sentences of a domain description - as used in most hierarchical planners - is known to be very representation dependent. To overcome these drawbacks, we propose a more general view of abstraction involving the change of representation language. We have developed a new abstraction methodology and a related sound and complete learning algorithm that allows the complete change of representation language of planning cases from concrete to abstract.