A logical theory of robot problem solving

摘要

The concept of an image space, motivated by the STRIPS system, is introduced as a formal logical counterpart to the state-space problem solving in robotics. The main results are two correspondence theorems establishing a relationship between solutions of problems formalized in the image space and formal proofs of certain formulas in the associated situation calculus. The concept of a solution, as used in the second correspondence theorem, has a rather general form allowing for conditional branching. Besides giving a deeper insight into the logic of problem solving the results suggest a possibility of using the advantages of the image-space representation in the situation calculus and conversely. The image space approach is further extended to cope with the frame problem in a similar way as STRIPS. Any STRIPS problem domain can be associated with an appropriate image space with frames of the same solving power.