Abstract

ABSTRIPS [Sacerdoti, 1974] was the first system to automate the construction of abstraction hierarchies for planning. Despite the seminal nature of this work, the method ABSTRIPS uses to construct abstraction hierarchies is only described in vague terms, and there is no analysis of how the method works or when it will be effective. This paper fills this gap and presents a reconstruction and analysis of the algorithm used in ABSTRIPS. The analysis shows that the method for constructing abstractions implicitly assumes that the preconditions that are determined to be details will be independent. In those cases where the independence assumption fails to hold, ABSTRIPS can degrade the performance of the planner. The paper also compares the ABSTRIPS approach to generating abstractions to the one used in ALPINE [Knoblock, 1990] and describes how ALPINE avoids the problem that arises in ABSTRIPS.

Date

September 22, 1992

Authors

Craig A Knoblock

Journal

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems

Pages

126-135