Dynamic Abstraction for Interleaved Task Planning and Execution

Abstract: It is often beneficial for an autonomous agent that operates in a complex environment to make use of different types of mathematical models to keep track of unobservable parts of the world or to perform prediction, planning and other types of reasoning. Since a model is always a simplification of something else, there always exists a tradeoff between the model’s accuracy and feasibility when it is used within a certain application due to the limited available computational resources. Currently, this tradeoff is to a large extent balanced by humans for model construction in general and for autonomous agents in particular. This thesis investigates different solutions where such agents are more responsible for balancing the tradeoff for models themselves in the context of interleaved task planning and plan execution. The necessary components for an autonomous agent that performs its abstractions and constructs planning models dynamically during task planning and execution are investigated and a method called DARE is developed that is a template for handling the possible situations that can occur such as the rise of unsuitable abstractions and need for dynamic construction of abstraction levels. Implementations of DARE are presented in two case studies where both a fully and partially observable stochastic domain are used, motivated by research with Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The case studies also demonstrate possible ways to perform dynamic abstraction and problem model construction in practice.