Intelligent planning: A decomposition and abstraction based approach to classical planning

Abstract

This is a review of the book Intelligent Planning: A Decomposition and Abstraction Based Approach by Qiang Yang [45], a book focused on classical planning. In recent years, the classical approach to planning has been challenged by many authors (e.g., [1,2,8,11,17,18]). The question is whether its fundamental assumptions and complexity make it of any use in real world applications. The arguments against classical planning (e.g., reactive planning [7,26]) are valid in a number of domains. Nevertheless, in our opinion, there are applications where classical planning is still the only reasonable approach, e.g., logistics, process planning, scheduling. Furthermore, in the last few years, many new approaches have been proposed which are elaborations of classical planning, 2 e.g., case-based planning [21–23,31,43], multi-agent planning [13,15,25], non-STRIPS style planning [6,29], and model checking based planning [12]. Yang’s book provides a set of basic techniques for generating plans and a set of formal and empirical tools for evaluating and comparing them. The book is divided in three parts. The first part is devoted to the fundamentals of planning. Its title is Representation, Basic Algorithms, and Analytical Techniques. The second describes the “divide et impera” approach and is entitled Problem Decomposition and Solution Combination. The third, Hierarchical Abstraction, is devoted to the use of abstraction in planning.