Modeling Actions with Ramifications in Nondeterministic, Concurrent, and Continuous Domains - And a Case Study

Abstract

Combining into a consistent theory co-existing models for different phenomena in reasoning about actions can be a problem as challenging as addressing new aspects. We present a uniform theory for reasoning about actions with indirect effects in nondeterministic, concurrent, and continuous domains. We report on a case study to which our theory has been successfully applied. Introduction Research on reasoning about actions in dynamic environments has made rapid progress in the recent past: Initiated by new, solid solutions to the Frame Problem in the early 1990s, 1 a variety of advanced aspects of complex environments has been successfully addressed, among which are: indirect effects of actions, concurrency, uncertainty, sensing actions, and continuous change in conjunction with socalled natural actions, to mention just the ones on which most of recent work has focused. However, the existence of models for all of these and other aspects does not imply that there be a unique mo...