Learning by Experimentation: Incremental Refinement of Incomplete Planning Domains

Abstract

Building a knowledge base requires iterative refinement to correct imperfections that keep lurking after each new version of the system. This paper concentrates on the automatic refinement of incomplete domain models for planning systems, presenting both a methodology for addressing the problem and empirical results obtained from an implemented system in several domains when initial domain knowledge is up 50% incomplete. Planning knowledge may be refined automatically through direct interaction with their environmental. Missing conditions cause unreliable predictions of action outcomes. Missing effects cause unreliable predictions of facts about the state. The paper shows that, contrary to popular belief, missing information is not necessarily associated with and selective interaction with the environment that pinpoints the type of fault in the domain knowledge that causes any unexpected behavior of the environment, and resorts to experimentation when additional information is needed to correct fault. Our approach has been implemented in EXPO, a system that uses PRODIGY as a baseline planner and improves its domain knowledge in several domains. The empirical results presented show that EXPO dramatically improves its prediction accuracy and reduces the amount of unreliable action outcomes. Planning, Learning, Experimentation, Theory, Refinement, Incomplete theories.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1993
Accession Number
ADA269671

Entities

People

  • Yolanda Gil

Organizations

  • University of Southern California

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Automatic
  • Automatic Programming
  • Classification
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computer Science
  • Environment
  • Information Science
  • Learning
  • Monitoring
  • Optical Scanning
  • Security
  • Test Sets
  • Training

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Neural Network Machine Learning.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.
  • Theoretical Analysis.