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International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages

ATAL 1995: Intelligent Agents II Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages pp 331–346Cite as

Foundations of a logical approach to agent programming

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1037))

Abstract

This paper describes a novel approach to high-level agent programming based on a highly developed logical theory of action. The user provides a specification of the agents' basic actions (preconditions and effects) as well as of relevant aspects of the environment, in an extended version of the situation calculus. He can then specify behaviors for the agents in terms of these actions in a programming language where one can refer to conditions in effect in the environment. When an implementation of the basic actions is provided, the programs can be executed in a real environment; otherwise, a simulated execution is still possible. The interpreter automatically maintains the world model required to execute programs based on the specification. The theoretical framework includes a solution to the frame problem, allows agents to have incomplete knowledge of their environment, and handles perceptual actions. The theory can also be used to prove programs correct. A simple meeting scheduling application is used to present the approach. Ongoing work on implementing the approach and handling outstanding problems is also described.

A version of this paper appeared in French in Actes des Troisièmes Journées Francophones sur l'Intelligence Artificielle Distribuée et les Systèmes Multi-Agents, Chambéry-St-Badolph, France, March, 1995. This research received financial support from the Information Technology Research Center (Ontario, Canada), the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (Canada), and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (Canada). Levesque and Reiter are fellows of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Many of our papers are available at http://www.cs.toronto.edu/∼cogrobo/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Glendon College, York University, 2275 Bayview Ave., M4N 3M6, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Yves Lespérance

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, M5S 1A4, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Hector J. Levesque, Fangzhen Lin, Daniel Marcu & Raymond Reiter

  3. Department of Computer and Information Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, 07102, Newark, NJ, USA

    Richard B. Scherl

Authors
  1. Yves Lespérance
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  2. Hector J. Levesque
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  3. Fangzhen Lin
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  4. Daniel Marcu
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  5. Raymond Reiter
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  6. Richard B. Scherl
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Editor information

Michael Wooldridge Jörg P. Müller Milind Tambe

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Lespérance, Y., Levesque, H.J., Lin, F., Marcu, D., Reiter, R., Scherl, R.B. (1996). Foundations of a logical approach to agent programming. In: Wooldridge, M., Müller, J.P., Tambe, M. (eds) Intelligent Agents II Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages. ATAL 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1037. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3540608052_76

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3540608052_76

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-60805-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49594-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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