Planning with Concurrency, Time and Resources: A CSP-Based Approach

Abstract

This chapter proposes to model a planning problem (e.g., the control of a satellite system) by identifying a set of relevant components in the domain (e.g., communication channels, on-board memory or batteries), which need to be controlled to obtain a desired temporal behavior. The domain model is enriched with the description of relevant constraints with respect to possible concurrency, temporal limits and scarce resource availability. The paper proposes a planning framework based on this view that relies on a formalization of the problem as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) and defines an algorithmic template in which the integration of planning and scheduling is a fundamental feature. In addition, the paper describes the current implementation of a constraint-based planner called OMP that is grounded on these ideas and shows the role constraints have in this planner, both at domain description level and as a guide for problem solving.