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Probabilistic Planning in AgentSpeak Using the POMDP Framework

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Combinations of Intelligent Methods and Applications

Part of the book series: Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ((SIST,volume 46))

Abstract

AgentSpeak is a logic-based programming language, based on the Belief-Desire-Intention paradigm, suitable for building complex agent-based systems. To limit the computational complexity, agents in AgentSpeak rely on a plan library to reduce the planning problem to the much simpler problem of plan selection. However, such a plan library is often inadequate when an agent is situated in an uncertain environment. In this work, we propose the \(\text {AgentSpeak}^+\) framework, which extends AgentSpeak with a mechanism for probabilistic planning. The beliefs of an \(\text {AgentSpeak}^+\) agent are represented using epistemic states to allow an agent to reason about its uncertain observations and the uncertain effects of its actions. Each epistemic state consists of a POMDP, used to encode the agent’s knowledge of the environment, and its associated probability distribution (or belief state). In addition, the POMDP is used to select the optimal actions for achieving a given goal, even when faced with uncertainty.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A variable is a term, a constant is a term, and from every n terms \(t_1, t_2, \ldots , t_n\) and every n-ary predicate p a new term \(p(t_1, t_2, \ldots , t_n)\) can be created.

  2. 2.

    Not to be confused with the belief base of an agent, which we see later.

  3. 3.

    For simplicity, we restrict ourselves in this work to the case where each input is relevant to only one epistemic state.

  4. 4.

    By the author Yingke Chen.

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Correspondence to Kim Bauters .

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Bauters, K. et al. (2016). Probabilistic Planning in AgentSpeak Using the POMDP Framework. In: Hatzilygeroudis, I., Palade, V., Prentzas, J. (eds) Combinations of Intelligent Methods and Applications. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 46. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26860-6_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26860-6_2

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