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Formalizing Regions in the Spatial Semantic Hierarchy: an AH-Graphs implementation approach

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Spatial Information Theory. Cognitive and Computational Foundations of Geographic Information Science (COSIT 1999)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1661))

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Abstract

We are interested in the problem of how an agent organizes its sensorimotor experiences in order to create a spatial representation. Our approach to solve this problem is the Spatial Semantic Hierarchy (SSH), an ontological hierarchy of representations for knowledge of large-scale space. At the SSH topological level, space is represented by places and connectivity relationships among them. Places are arranged into paths so that the topological representation looks like the street network of a city. Grouping places into regions allows an agent to reason efficiently about its spatial knowledge. Regions can be organized in a hierarchical structure suitable for hierarchical planning and human-level interface. In this paper we show how a hierarchy of regions can be automatically created by an agent. We extend the SSH axiomatic theory to include regions as first order objects at the SSH topological level. Based on this formalization, an implementation using Annotated Hierarchical graphs (AH-graphs) is proposed. The AH-graph model is chosen for its eficiency to perform basic operations like path planning, its facility to integrate information needed by different agent’s tasks, and because it provides a large indexed database of knowledge about the world with a friendly flow of information from and to human operators.

This work has taken place in the Qualitative Reasoning Group at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin. Research of the Qualitative Reasoning Group is supported in part by NSF grants IRI-9504138 and CDA 9617327, by NASA grant NAG 9-898, and by the Texas Advanced Research Program under grants no. 003658-242 and 003658-347.

Part of this work was carried out during a stay of the second author at the Department of Computer Sciences of the University of Texas at Austin, under grant of the Spanish Government. The work on AH-graphs and NEXUS has been supported by the Spanish Government under research contract CICYT-TAP96-0763.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Emilio Remolina & Benjamin Kuipers

  2. Departamento de Ingenieria de Sistemas y Automatica (ISA), E.T.S.I. Informatica, Universidad de Malaga, Campus Teatinos, 29080, Malaga, Spain

    Juan A. Fernandez & Javier Gonzalez

Authors
  1. Emilio Remolina
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  2. Juan A. Fernandez
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  3. Benjamin Kuipers
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  4. Javier Gonzalez
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Hamburg, Fachbereich Informatik, Vogt-Kölln-Straße 30, D-22527, Hamburg, Germany

    Christian Freksa

  2. Department of Geography, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 14261, USA

    David M. Mark

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Remolina, E., Fernandez, J.A., Kuipers, B., Gonzalez, J. (1999). Formalizing Regions in the Spatial Semantic Hierarchy: an AH-Graphs implementation approach. In: Freksa, C., Mark, D.M. (eds) Spatial Information Theory. Cognitive and Computational Foundations of Geographic Information Science. COSIT 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1661. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48384-5_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48384-5_8

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66365-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48384-7

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