PLANSERVE Planning and Scheduling Techniques for the Intelligent Problem Solving Grid Planning and Scheduling Team ISTC-CNR National Research Council of Italy Viale Marx 15, I Rome, Italy

Planning and ISTC-CNR Different aspects of research and development –Algorithms for Planning and Scheduling (P&S) integration of P&S algorithms Constraint-based reasoning –temporal and resource reasoning –Interactive Problem Solving how to include the user in the loop –Space applications OOSCAR project (ASI - Italian Space Agency) MEXAR Interactive Support for Mission Planning in MARS EXPRESS (ESA project ended in July 2002) Collaborations: –University of Rome “La Sapienza” –Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA

Present Projects ASI (Italian Space Agency) -- Basic research funds –SACSO: SAfety Critical Software for robotics (JERRY) –Contraint-Based Continuous Planning (O-OSCAR and beyond) DOVES ARISCOM MIUR (Italian Ministry for Education University and Research) –Multi-agent systems with software and robotic agents for “socially relevant” applications

PST Members CNR Research Scientists –Amedeo Cesta –Angelo Oddi PhD Students –Gabriella Cortellessa –Nicola Policella –Simone Fratini Research Assistants –Federico Pecora –Riccardo Rasconi

IPSG Prototype: our role Problem Solver 1 Problem Solver 2 Problem Solver N Domain Analyser 1 Domain Analyser 2 Domain Analyser N Application Ontology 1 Application Ontology 2 Application Ontology N IPSG Interface Knowledge Acquisition Agent Solver Agent CLIENT

Potential Contributions Definition of the class of Planning and Scheduling (P&S) problems involved. –A particular case is the integration of planning and scheduling algorithms Solver Agent –Representation of the solver configurations –Domain analysis and mapping problems in to solver configurations –Selection and integration of the software modules Software infrastructure

Planning and Scheduling Problems A first problem is the definition of the class of scheduling and planning problems that we can solve. A selection from the current literature of the best planning and scheduling algorithms. This selection must be consider the availability of free and robust implementation of the algorithms.

Planning and Scheduling Solvers A particular case is the integration of planning and scheduling algorithms. We have some experience on component integration for scheduling architectures and are doing right now some research for understanding different ways for integrating a generic planner with one or more scheduling algorithms. –Classical Planners + OOSCAR –Graph Plan-based planners + OOSCAR

Domain Analysers A Domain Analyser should bridge the gap between problems and solver configurations. Several issues are involved: –Classification of the set of possible P&S domain problems (e.g, with respect to the type of temporal and resource constraints, the level of temporal flexibility, the degree of parallelism of the actions, etc.) –A representation of the solver configurations –A mechanism for mapping problems in to solvers

Software Infrastructure A fundamental problem is how "put" together all the modules in a way that they can communicate each other, refer to a common representation of the problems and be combined in different ways. Several issues are involved in this phase, one is the choice of a software infrastructure for the communication: –For example, ACE (the Adaptive Communication Environment)

Comments and Conclusions Integration of P&S algorithms should have an important role We still lack of some strong examples: –the role of the P&S technologies in the SMEs –with and without KE services HCI techniques should have a greater role Advanced features: –mixed-initiative tool for the generation of solver configurations; –dynamic and adaptive mapping between problems and solvers.