GTrans: A Collaborative Mixed-Initiative Planner Trivikram Immaneni Michael T. Cox Collaboration and Cognition Lab Wright State University http://www.cs.wright.edu/~mcox/gtrans/

Research Goals To present to the user a Planning as goal change metaphor instead of a Search metaphor To support collaboration between multiple, distributed human users and multiple planning agents To develop a mixed-initiative collaboration test bed

Abstract GTrans is a distributed application in which multiple, remote agents collaborate to jointly solve a problem. The system allows users to interact with semi-autonomous planning agents and with each other. When solving a given problem, resource constraints often prevent perfect plans from being assembled that achieve all goals. In such cases, users are able to shift resources and to shift the goals themselves so that equilibrium can be achieved to maximize the solutions.

Characteristic Features Mixed-Initiative Collaboration of human and automated planners GTrans helps the user to actively participate in the planning process by facilitating goal transformations. A goal transformation is a minimal movement of goal in a goal space Collaborative Multiple, remote users can collaborate to jointly solve a problem Multiple agents can share/combine resources to solve their individual problems

Architecture PRODIGY/AGENT Agent 1 Joint Planning mode PRODIGY/AGENT Problem PRODIGY/AGENT Agent 1 Plan Domain File Joint Planning mode Constraints Problem PRODIGY/AGENT Server Plan Agent 2 Domain File Constraints Separate Planning mode

Components GTrans Server Prodigy/Agent Coordinates communications between agents Acts as a repository of shared objects Prodigy/Agent PRODIGY is an automated non-linear intelligent planner Wrapper + PRODIGY Wrapper is the interface between GTrans User Agent and PRODIGY

User Agent and PRODIGY GTrans User Agent PRODIGY Planner Objects Create Objects Manipulate Objects Goals Create Goals Transform Goals PRODIGY Planner Plan for Problem File Problem File PRODIGY Wrapper

GTrans Modes of Operation Separate Planning Mode Separate, stand alone planning without access to other Agents’ information Info-Sharing Mode An Agent is aware of the problems on which the other Agents in the system are working Joint Planning Mode Agents can collaborate to solve a problem