Skip to main content

Logic-Based Hybrid Agents

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Computational Logic: Logic Programming and Beyond

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2407))

  • 657 Accesses

Abstract

Hybrid agents integrate different styles of reactive, deliberative, and cooperative problem solving in a modular fashion. They are the prime device of (Distributed) Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science for realising a broad spectrum of simultaneous functionalities in application domains such as Artificial Life, (Tele-)Robotics, Flexible Manufacturing, and Automated Transportation. This article presents a design methodology for hybrid agents which combines complementary approaches of Software Engineering and declarative Cognitive Robotics at five interconnected specification stages: Architecture, Computational Model, Theory, Inference, and Implementation. Although we give an introduction to the complete methodology of agent design in the first section, we concentrated on presenting a logic-based approach to describe deliberative processes within a hybrid agent architecture in the rest of the article. The interested reader can find the details of the overall framework as well as the proofs of the theorems in [JF01].

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. J. F. Allen. Towards a general theory of action and time. Artificial Intelligence, 23:123–154, 1984.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. M. Boddy and T. L. Dean. Deliberation scheduling for problem solving in time-constrained environments. Artificial Intelligence, 1(67):245–285, 1994.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. A. L. Blum and M. L. Furst. Fast planning through planning graph analysis. In C. S. Mellish, editor, Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), pages 166–1642, Montreal, Canada, August 1995. Morgan Kaufmann.

    Google Scholar 

  4. C. M. Bowling, editor. Principles and Elements of Thought Construction, Artificial Intelligence, and Cognitive Robotics. Csy Pub, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  5. R. A. Brooks. Intelligence without reason. Technical Report 1293, MIT AI Laboratory, April 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  6. S. Bornscheuer and M. Thielscher. Representing concurrent actions and solving conflicts. In B. Nebel and L. Dreschler-Fischer, editors, Proceedings of the German Annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI), volume 861 of LNAI, pages 16–27, Saarbrücken, Germany, September 1994. Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  7. S. Bornscheuer and M. Thielscher. Explicit and implicit indeterminism: Reasoning about uncertain and contradictory specifications of dynamic systems. Journal of Logic Programming, 31(1–3):119–155, 1997.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. P. R. Cohen and H. J. Levesque. Intention is choice with commitment. Artificial Intelligence, 42(3):213–261, 1990.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. J. Davila. Reactive Pascal and the Event Calculus. In U. Siegmund and M. Thielscher, editors, Proc. of the FAPR’ 96 Workshop on Reasoning about Actions and Planning in Complex Environments, volume 11 of Technical Report AIDA, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  10. P. Doherty, J. Gustafsson, L. Karlsson, and J. Kvarnström. TAL: Temporal action logics language specification and tutorial. Linköping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science, 3(15), 1998. URL: http://www.ep.liu.se/ea/cis/1998/015/.

  11. K. Erol, J. Hendler, and D. Nau. Htn planning: complexity and expressivity. In Proc. of the 12th National Conference on Artifical Intelligence (AAAI-94), volume 2, Seattle, Washington, 1994. AAAI Press.

    Google Scholar 

  12. K. Eder, S. Hölldobler, and M. Thielscher. An abstract machine for reasoning about situations, actions, and causality. In R. Dyckhoff, H. Herre, and P. Schroeder-Heister, editors, Proceedings of the International Workshop on Extensions of Logic Programming (ELP), volume 1050 of LNAI, pages 137–151, Leipzig, Germany, March 1996. Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  13. C. Elsaesser and R. MacMillan. Representation and algorithms for multi-agent adversarial planning. Technical report, The MITRE Corporation, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  14. K. Eshghi. Abductive planning with event calculus. In Proc. of the Fifth International Conference on Logic Programming, pages 562–578, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  15. T. H. Fung and R. A. Kowalski. The IFF Proof Procedure for Abductive Logic Programming. Journal of Logic Programming, 33(2):151–165, 1997.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  16. R. E. Fikes and N. J. Nilsson. Strips: A new approach to the application of theorem proving to problem solving. Artifical Intelligence, 2(3/4):189–208, 1971.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. G. Große, S. Hölldobler, J. Schneeberger, U. Sigmund, and M. Thielscher. Equational Logic Programming, Actions, and Change. Technical Report AIDA-92-14, FG Intellektik, TH Darmstadt, 1992. Appeared in Proc. Joint International Conference and Symposium on Logic Programming JIC-SLP’92.

    Google Scholar 

  18. M. P. Georgeff and A. L. Lansky. Reactive reasoning and planning. In Proc. of the 6th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  19. M. Gelfond and V. Lifschitz. The stable model semantics for logic programming. In R. A. Kowalski and K. Bowen, editors, Proceedings 5 th International Conference on Logic Programming, pages 1070–1080, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988. MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  20. M. Gelfond, V. Lifschitz, and A. Rabinov. What are the limitations of the situation calculus? In S. Boyer, editor, Automated Reasoning, Essays in Honor of Woody Bledsoe, pages 167–181. Kluwer Academic, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  21. C. Green. Applications of Theorem Proving to Problem Solving. In Proceedings of IJCAI’69, 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  22. A. van Gelder, K. Ross, and J.S. Schlipf. Unfounded sets and well-founded semantics for general logic programs. In Proceedings of the 7 th ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on Principles of Database Systems, pages 221–230, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  23. C. A. R. Hoare. An axiomatic basis for computer programming. Communications of the ACM, 12:576–580 and 583, 1969.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. S. Hölldobler and J. Schneeberger. A new deductive approach to planning. New Generation Computing, 8:225–244, 1990.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. C. S. Herrmann and M. Thielscher. Reasoning about continuous processes. In B. Clancey and D. Weld, editors, Proceedings of the AAAI National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 639–644, Portland, OR, August 1996. MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  26. C. G. Jung and K. Fischer. Theory and practice of hybrid agents. Technical Report RR-01-01, DFKI GmbH, Germany, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  27. C. G. Jung, K. Fischer, and A. Burt. Multi-agent planning using an abductive event calculus. Technical Report RR-96-4, DFKI GmbH, Saarbrücken, Germany, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  28. A. C. Kakas and R. Miller. Reasoning about actions, narratives, and ramifications. Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, 1(4):39–72, 1997.

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  29. R. A. Kowalski. Logic for Problem Solving, volume 7 of Artificial Intelligence Series. Elsevier Science Publisher B.V. (North-Holland), 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  30. R. A. Kowalski and M. Sergot. A logic-based calculus of events. New Generation Computing, 4(1):67–95, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  31. R. A. Kowalski and F. Sadri. The situation calculus and event calculus compared. In M. Bruynooghe, editor, Proceedings of the International Logic Programming Symposium, pages 539–553, Ithaca, New York, 1994. The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  32. H. A. Kautz and B. Selman. Pushing the envelope: Planning, propositional logic, and stochastic search. In B. Clancey and D. Weld, editors, Proceedings of the AAAI National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 1194–1201, Portland, OR, August 1996. MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  33. R. A. Kowalski and F. Sadri. Towards a unified agent architecture that combines rationality with reactivity. In D. Pedreschi and C. Zaniolo, editors, Logic in Databases, volume 1154 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, 1996.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  34. K. Kunen. Negation in Logic Programming. Journal of Logic Programming, 4:231–245, 1987.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  35. F. Lin. Embracing causality in specifying the indirect effects of actions. In C. S. Mellish, editor, Proceedings of the International Conference on Artifical Intelligence, pages 1985–1991, Montreal, Canada, August 1995. Morgan Kaufmann.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Y. Lespérance, H. J. Levesque, F. Lin, D. Marcu, R. Reiter, and R. B. Scherl. A Logical Approach to High-Level Robot Programming: A Progress Report. In B. Kuipers, editor, Control of the Physical World by Intelligent Systems: Papers from the’ 94 AAAI Fall Symposium, pages 79–85, New Orleans, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  37. H. Levesque, R. Reiter, and Y. Lespérance. Golog: A logic programming language for dynamic domains. Journal of Logic Programming, 31:59–84, 1997.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  38. F. Lin and Y. Shoham. Provably correct theories of action. Journal of ACM, 42(2):293–320, 1995.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  39. J. McCarthy. Programs with Common Sense. In Proceedings of the Symposium on the Mechanization of Thought Processes, volume 1, pages 77–84, London, November 1958.

    Google Scholar 

  40. J. McCarthy. Situations and Actions and Causal Laws. Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, Memo 2, 1963.

    Google Scholar 

  41. J. McCarthy. Formalization of STRIPS in situation calculus. Technical report, Formal Reasoning Group, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  42. J. McCarthy and P. J. Hayes. Some philosophical problems from the standpoint of artificial intelligence. Machine Intelligence, 4:463–502, 1969.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  43. L. Missiaen. Localized Abductive Planning with the Event Calculus. PhD Dissertation, K.U. Leuven, Leuven, September 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  44. J. P. Müller. The right agent (architecture) to do the right thing. In J. P. Müller, M. P. Singh, and A. S. Rao, editors, Intelligent Agents V — Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-98), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  45. N. J. Nilsson. Shakey the robot. Technical report, SRI AI Center, April 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  46. R. Reiter. The frame problem in the situation calculus: A simple solution (sometimes) and a completeness result for goal regression. In V. Lifschitz, editor, Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Theory of Computation, pages 359–380. Academic Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  47. R. Reiter. Knowledge in action: Logical foundations for describing and implementing dynamical systems. URL: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/cogrobo/, 1999.

  48. A. S. Rao and M. P. Georgeff. Modeling Agents Within a BDI-Architecture. In R. Fikes and E. Sandewall, editors, Proc. of the 2rd International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR’91), pages 473–484, Cambridge, Mass., April 1991. Morgan Kaufmann.

    Google Scholar 

  49. E. D. Sacerdoti. Planning in a Hierarchy of Abstraction Spaces. Artificial Intelligence, 5:115–135, 1974.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  50. E. Sandewall. Features and Fluents. The Representation of Knowledge about Dynamical Systems. Oxford University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  51. M. Shanahan. Prediction is deduction but explanation is abduction. In Proceedings of the IJCAI 89, page 1055, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  52. M. Shanahan. Representing continuous change in the event calculus. In Proceedings of the EC AI 90, pages 589–603, August 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  53. M. Shanahan. A circumscriptive calculus of events. Artificial Intelligence Journal, 77:249–284, 1995.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  54. M. Shanahan. Event calculus planning revisited. In Proc. of the Fourth European Conference on Planning, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  55. M. Shanahan. Noise and the Common Sense Informatic Situation for a Mobile Robot. In Proc. AAAI’96, pages 1098–1103, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  56. M. Shanahan. Solving the Frame Problem: A Mathematical Investigation of the Common Sense Law of Inertia. MIT Press, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Y. Shoham. Agent-oriented programming. Technical report, Stanford University, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  58. M. Spivey. The Z notation (second edition). Prentice Hall International, Hempel Hempstead, England, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  59. M. Thielscher. Ramification and causality. Artificial Intelligence, 89(1–2):317–364, 1997.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  60. M. Thielscher. From Situation Calculus to Fluent Calculus: State update axioms as a solution to the inferential frame problem. Artificial Intelligence Journal, 1999. (To appear).

    Google Scholar 

  61. A. ten Teije and F. van Harmelen. Characterising approximate problem-solving: From partially fulfilled preconditions to partially achieved functionality. In H. Prade, editor, Proc. of the 13th Biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI’98), pages 78–82, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  62. D. Weld. An introduction to least-commitment planning. AI Magazine, 15(4):27–62, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  63. R. Washington and B. Hayes Roth. Incremental Abstraction Planning for Limited-Time Situations. In New Directions in AI Planning, pages 91–102. IOS press, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Jung, C.G., Fischer, K. (2002). Logic-Based Hybrid Agents. In: Kakas, A.C., Sadri, F. (eds) Computational Logic: Logic Programming and Beyond. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2407. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45628-7_23

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45628-7_23

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43959-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45628-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics