HICAP: An Interactive Case-Based Planning Architecture and Its Application to Noncombatant Evacuation Operations

Abstract

This paper describes HICAP (Hierarchical Interactive Case-based Architecture for Planning), a general purpose planning architecture that we have developed and applied to assist military commanders and their staff with planning NEOs (Noncombatant Evacuation Operations). HICAP integrates a hierarchical task editor, HTE, with a conversational case-based planning tool, NaCoDAE/HTN. In this application, HTE maintains an agenda of tactical planning tasks that, according to the guidelines indicated by military doctrine, must be addressed in a NEO plan. It also supports several bookkeeping tasks, which are crucial for large-scale planning tasks that differ greatly among different NEO operations. Military planning personnel select a task to decompose from HTE and then use NaCoDAE/HTN to interactively refine it into an operational plan by selecting and applying cases, which represent task decompositions from previous NEO operations. Thus, HICAP helps commanders by using previous experience to fo...