SAT-based planning in complex domains: Concurrency, constraints and nondeterminism Original Research Article

Planning as satisfiability is a very efficient technique for classical planning, i.e., for planning domains in which both the effects of actions and the initial state are completely specified. In this paper we present C-sat, a SAT-based procedure capable of dealing with planning domains having incomplete information about the initial state, and whose underlying transition system is specified using the highly expressive action language C. Thus, C-sat allows for planning in domains involving (i) actions which can be executed concurrently; (ii) (ramification and qualification) constraints affecting the effects of actions; and (iii) nondeterminism in the initial state and in the effects of actions. We first prove the correctness and the completeness of C-sat, discuss some optimizations, and then we present C-plan, a system based on C-sat. C-plan works on any C planning problem, but some optimizations have not been fully implemented yet. Nevertheless, the experimental analysis shows that SAT-based approaches to planning with incomplete information are viable, at least in the case of problems with a high degree of parallelism.