A computational framework for package planning

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Xiang, Y.^{; *} | Janzen, M.

Affiliations: Department of Computing and Information Science, University of Guelph, Canada

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Prof. Yang Xiang, Department of Computing and Information Science, University of Guelph, Canada N1G 2W1. Tel.: +1 519 824 4120 Ext. 52824; Fax: +1 519 837 0323; E-mail: yxiang@cis.uoguelph.ca

Abstract: We consider a novel class of applications where a set of activities conducted by a group of people over a time period needs to be planned, taking into account each member's preference. We refer to the decision process that leads to such a plan as package planning. The problem differs from a number of well-studied AI problems including standard AI planning and decision-theoretic planning. We present a computational framework using a combination of activity grammar, heuristic search, decision theoretic graphical models, and dynamic preference aggregation. We show that the computation is tractable when the problem parameters are reasonably bounded.

Keywords: Graphical models, uncertain reasoning, decision theory, utility networks, package planning

DOI: 10.3233/KES-2006-10201

Journal: International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 93-104, 2006