C. Lecoutre, L. Saïs, S. Tabary, V. Vidal, Exploiting Past and Future: Pruning by
Inconsistent Partial State Dominance, to appear in Proceedings of
the Thirteenth International Conference on Principles and Practice of
Constraint Programming (CP-2007), Providence, RI, USA, 2007.
abstract
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It has recently been shown, for the Constraint Satisfaction Problem
(CSP), that the state associated with a node of the search tree built
by a backtracking algorithm can be exploited, using a transposition
table, to prevent the exploration of similar nodes. This technique is
commonly used in game search algorithms, heuristic search or planning.
Its application is made possible in CSP by computing a partial state
– a set of meaningful variables and their associated domains
– preserving relevant information. We go further in this paper
by providing two new powerful operators dedicated to the extraction of
inconsistent partial states. The first one eliminates any variable
whose current domain can be deduced from the partial state, and the
second one extracts the variables involved in the inconsistency proof
of the subtree rooted by the current node. Interestingly, we show
these two operators can be safely combined, and that the pruning
capabilities of the recorded partial states can be improved by a
dominance detection approach (using lazy data structures).
C. Lecoutre, L. Saïs, S. Tabary, V. Vidal, Transposition Tables for Constraint
Satisfaction, to appear in Proceedings of the Twenty-Second
Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2007), Vancouver, Canada,
2007.
abstract
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In this paper, a state-based approach for the Constraint
Satisfaction Problem (CSP) is proposed. The key novelty is an
original use of state memorization during search to prevent the
exploration of similar subnetworks. Classical techniques to avoid the
resurgence of previously encountered conflicts involve recording
conflict sets. This contrasts with our state-based approach which
records subnetworks – a snapshot of some selected domains
– already explored. This knowledge is later used to either prune
inconsistent states or avoid recomputing the solutions of these
subnetworks. Interestingly enough, the two approaches present some
complementarity: different states can be pruned from the same partial
instantiation or conflict set, whereas different partial
instantiations can lead to the same state that needs to be explored
only once. Also, our proposed approach is able to dynamically break
some kinds of symmetries (e.g. neighborhood interchangeability). The
obtained experimental results demonstrate the promising prospects of
state-based search.
C. Lecoutre, L. Saïs, S. Tabary, V. Vidal, Nogood Recording from Restarts, in
Proceedings of the Twentieth International Joint Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2007), pp. 131-135, Hyderabad, India,
2007.
abstract
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In this paper, nogood recording is investigated within the
randomization and restart framework. Our goal is to avoid the same
situations to occur from one run to the next one. More precisely,
nogoods are recorded when the current cutoff value is reached,
i.e. before restarting the search algorithm. Such a set of nogoods is
extracted from the last branch of the current search
tree. Interestingly, the number of nogoods recorded before each new
run is bounded by the length of the last branch of the search tree. As
a consequence, the total number of recorded nogoods is polynomial in
the number of restarts. Experiments over a wide range of CSP instances
demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
C. Lecoutre, L. Saïs, S. Tabary, V. Vidal, Last Conflict based Reasoning, in
Proceedings of the Seventeenth European Conference on Artificial
Intelligence (ECAI-2006), pp. 133-137, Riva del Garda, Italy, 2006.
abstract
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In this paper, we propose an approach to guide search to sources of
conflicts. The principle is the following: the last variable involved
in the last conflict is selected in priority, as long as the
constraint network can not be made consistent, in order to find the
(most recent) culprit variable, following the current partial
instantiation from the leaf to the root of the search tree. In other
words, the variable ordering heuristic is violated, until a backtrack
to the culprit variable occurs and a singleton consistent value is
found. Consequently, this way of reasoning can easily be grafted to
many search algorithms and represents an original way to avoid
thrashing. Experiments over a wide range of benchmarks demonstrate the
effectiveness of this approach.
M. Schoenauer, P. Savéant, V. Vidal, Divide-and-Evolve: a New Memetic Scheme for
Domain-Independent Temporal Planning, in Proceedings of the Sixth
European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial
Optimization (EvoCOP-2006), pp. 247-260, Budapest, Hungary, 2006.
abstract
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An original approach, termed Divide-and-Evolve is proposed to
hybridize Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) with Operational Research (OR)
methods in the domain of Temporal Planning Problems (TPPs). Whereas
standard Memetic Algorithms use local search methods to improve the
evolutionary solutions, and thus fail when the local method stops
working on the complete problem, the Divide-and-Evolve approach splits
the problem at hand into several, hopefully easier, sub-problems, and
can thus solve globally problems that are intractable when directly
fed into deterministic OR algorithms. But the most prominent
advantage of the Divide-and-Evolve approach is that it immediately
opens up an avenue for multi-objective optimization, even though the
OR method that is used is single-objective. Proof of concept approach
on the standard (single-objective) Zeno transportation benchmark is
given, and a small original multi-objective benchmark is proposed in
the same Zeno framework to assess the multi-objective capabilities of
the proposed methodology, a breakthrough in Temporal Planning.
V. Vidal, H. Geffner, Solving Simple
Planning Problems with More Inference and No Search, in Proceedings
of the Eleventh International Conference on Principles and Practice of
Constraint Programming (CP-2005), pp. 682-696, Sitges, Spain, 2005.
abstract
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Many benchmark domains in AI planning including Blocks, Logistics,
Gripper, Satellite, and others lack the interactions that characterize
puzzles and can be solved non-optimally in low polynomial time. They
are indeed easy problems for people, although as with many other
problems in AI, not always easy for machines. In this paper, we
address the question of whether simple problems such as these can be
solved in a simple way, i.e., without search, by means of a
domain-independent planner. We address this question empirically by
extending the constraint-based planner CPT with additional
domain-independent inference mechanisms. We show then for the first
time that these and several other benchmark domains can be solved with
no backtracks while performing only polynomial node operations. This
is a remarkable finding in our view that suggests that the classes of
problems that are solvable without search may be actually much broader
than the classes that have been identified so far by work in Tractable
Planning.
V. Vidal, H. Geffner, Branching and
Pruning: An Optimal Temporal POCL Planner based on Constraint
Programming, in Proceedings of the Nineteenth National Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2004), pp. 570-577, San José, CA,
USA, 2004.
abstract
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A key feature of modern optimal planners such as Graphplan and
Blackbox is their ability to prune large parts of the search space.
Previous Partial Order Causal Link (POCL) planners provide an
alternative branching scheme but lacking comparable pruning mechanisms
do not perform as well. In this paper, a domain-independent
formulation of temporal planning based on Constraint Programming is
introduced that successfully combines a POCL branching scheme with
powerful and sound pruning rules. The key novelty in the formulation
is the ability to reason about supports, precedences, and causal links
involving actions that are not in the plan. Experiments over a wide
range of benchmarks show that the resulting optimal temporal planner
is much faster than current ones and is competitive with the best
parallel planners in the special case in which actions have all the
same duration.
V. Vidal, A Lookahead Strategy for
Heuristic Search Planning, in Proceedings of the Fourteenth
International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling
(ICAPS-2004), pp. 150-159, Whistler, Canada, 2004.
abstract
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Relaxed plans are used in the heuristic search planner FF for
computing a numerical heuristic and extracting helpful actions. We
present a novel way for extracting information from the relaxed plan
and for dealing with helpful actions, by considering the high quality
of the relaxed plans in numerous domains. For each evaluated state, we
employ actions from these plans in order to find the beginning of a
valid plan that can lead to a reachable state. We use this lookahead
strategy in a complete best-first search algorithm, modified in order
to take into account helpful actions. In numerous planning domains,
the performance of heuristic search planning and the size of the
problems that can be handled have been drastically improved.
V. Vidal, A Lookahead Strategy for
Solving Large Planning Problems (extended abstract), in Proceedings
of the Eighteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial
Intelligence (IJCAI-2003), pp. 1524-1525, Acapulco, Mexico, 2003.
abstract
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Relaxed plans are used in the heuristic search planner FF for
computing a numerical heuristic and extracting helpful actions. We
present a novel way for extracting information from the relaxed plan
and for dealing with helpful actions, by considering the high quality
of the relaxed plans. In numerous domains, the performance of
heuristic search planning and the size of the problems that can be
handled have been drastically improved.
M. Cayrol, P. Régnier, V. Vidal, New Results about LCGP, a Least Committed
Graphplan, in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on
Artificial Intelligence Planning and Scheduling (AIPS-2000), pp.
273-282, Breckenridge, CO, USA, 2000.
abstract
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Planners from the family of Graphplan (Graphplan, IPP, STAN...) are
presently considered as the most efficient ones on numerous planning
domains. Their partially ordered plans can be represented as sequences
of sets of simultaneous actions. Using this representation and the
criterion of independence, Graphplan constrains the choice of actions
in such sets. We demonstrate that this criterion can be partially
relaxed in order to produce valid plans in the sense of Graphplan. Our
planner LCGP needs fewer levels than Graphplan to generate these plans
(the same number in the worst cases). Then we present an experimental
study which demonstrates that, in classical planning domains, LCGP
"practically" solves more problems than planners from the family of
Graphplan (Graphplan, IPP, STAN...). In most cases, these tests
demonstrate the best performances of LCGP. Then, we present a
domain-independent heuristic for variable and domain ordering. LCGP is
thus improved using this heuristic, and compared with HSP-R, a very
efficient non-optimal sequential planner, based on an heuristic
backward state space search.
V. Vidal, P. Régnier, Total Order
Planning is more Efficient than we Thought, in Proceedings of the
Sixteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-99),
pp. 591-596, Orlando, FL, USA, 1999.
abstract
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In this paper, we present VVPLAN, a planner based on a classical
state space search algorithm. The language used for domain and problem
representation is ADL (Pednault 1989). We have compared VVPLAN to
UCPOP (Penberthy and Weld 1992)(Weld 1994), a planner that admits the
same representation language. Our experiments prove that such an
algorithm is often more efficient than a planner based on a search in
the space of partial plans. This result is achieved as soon as we
introduce in VVPLAN s algorithm a loop test relating to previously
visited states. In particular domains, VVPLAN can also outperform IPP
(Koehler et al. 1997), which makes a planning graph analysis as
GRAPHPLAN. We present here the details of our comparison with UCPOP,
the results we obtain and our conclusions.