Intelligent Belief State Sampling for Conformant Planning

Abstract

We propose a new method for conformant planning based on two ideas. First given a small sample of the initial belief state we reduce conformant planning for this sample to a classical planning problem, giving us a candidate solution. Second we exploit regression as a way to compactly represent necessary conditions for such a solution to be valid for the non-deterministic setting. If necessary, we use the resulting formula to extract a counter-example to populate our next sampling. Our experiments show that this approach is competitive on a class of problems that are hard for traditional planners, and also returns generally shorter plans. We are also able to demonstrate unsatisfiability of some problems.