Planning Initiative SPAR Core Group Report for Meeting 1 PRC, Arlington, VA - 23/24-Sep-97

Attendees | Objectives | Remit | Name | Timetable | Process | Participants | Information Gathering | SPAR 0.0 | Outline Report | Next Actions

Attendees

• Core Group Members: Todd Carrico, Karen Myers, Bill Swartout, Austin Tate
• Government Representative: Tom Garvey
• Support: Adam Pease, Steve Polyak

Objectives defined by Tom Garvey, Doug Dyer, Nort Fowler and Rick Metzger

1. The original objectives as stated before the meeting are reported here. They were introduced by Tom Garvey and discussed further.
2. The balance of generic versus specific target program needs was discussed. The effort is meant to be generic but have obvious mapping to real application needs - not requiring a Ph.D in AI planning to interpret its use.
3. It was also stated that there was a need to promote the use of the shared representation. This would be done by DARPA and Rome Lab. Program Managers encouraging its use where apppropriate and requiring feedback where it was inappropriate or found lacking for projects they had responsibility for. And also by technical people working in the field of plan representations to promote its uptake by helping in its early adoption and extension to real scenarios and applications.

1. To produce the specification of a representation for plans, processes and activities for use by technology-base and applications projects in DARPA, Rome Laboratory and beyond.
2. To seek input from the technical and user communities to influence the specification.
3. To communicate and promote the specification to its intended audience.

• ARPI Plan Representation - APR
• Planning Initiative Plan Representation - PIPR (pronounced "piper")
• Shared Plan Representation - SPR
• Shared Planning and Activity Representation - SPAR
• Shared Planning, Execution and Activity Representation - SPEAR

Timetable and Deliverables

1. Merge existing plan ontology work into a good, solid core representation. Aim to present this at November ARPI Workshop.
2. Apply that solid core to the creation of a fairly complex real world instantiation:
   • Todd Carrico suggests AITS WarPlan.
   • Austin Tate suggests also JFACC Plan Representation.
   • Steve Smith suggests also ALP/Alpine Plan/Schedule Representation.
3. Take lessons learned in 2 to refine 1
4. Extend 3 to consider some of the necessary outliers - like different representations of uncertainty or alternate representations of actions for specific domains. Only those REQUIRED by some group which could not be satisfied by the work from 1 and 3. This should be an empty set if we do our job right.

1. Define core meta-model (small). Define extensions mechanism. Define how other non plan/activity models relate to the core. Draw on work of KRSL-Plans (Oct 94),OMWG CPR, PIF 1.1, NIST PSL, etc. Semantic foundation with formal properties.
2. Establish a requirements and sample scenarios document. Establish a set of specific scenarios or samples that must be encodable. Coordinated by Todd Carrico with assistance from Adam Pease using input from user requirements panel. Could usefully draw on work on NIST PSL requirements document.
3. Special technical representation and reasoning interests accommodated. Inputs from Specialism Experts Panel - coordinated by Austin Tate with assistance from Steve Polyak.
4. Consider sample extensions as needed by specific ARPI target and technical communities to verify ARPI CPR suitability.
5. Consider Presentations - specific encodings or styles for communicating the CPR. Assumptions of those included are:
   • OO/GFP?
   • Grammar based verb/NP/Qualifiers
   • Logic/Constraints
6. Translatability checks with specific specialists/systems. Assumptions on those to be checked for ARPI are:
   • Austin Tate suggested:
     • LOOM
     • ACT/SIPE
     • O-Plan TF
     • OZONE
     • ADL
     • PIF/NIST PSL
     • IDEON (ISTI)
   • Adam Pease suggested:
     • KIF
     • CycL/MELD
     • Kestrel Slang/Specware
7. Communicate progress and results to ARPI and DARPA applications programs throughout the whole process. Input from and critiques sought from Panels.

The process adopted is documented here.

Participants

Core Group

• * Todd Carrico (with support from Adam Pease)
• * Karen Myers
• * Bill Swartout
• * Austin Tate (with support from Steve Polyak)
• * Tom Garvey (Government Representative)

• Todd Carrico proposed:
  • AITS "War Plan" representative
• Austin Tate proposed:
  • Col. "Buster" McCrabb's representative
  • JFACC Plan Schema representative
• Steve Smith proposed:
  • ALP/Alpine representative

• Tom Garvey, Doug Dyer and Nort Fowler proposed:
  • Daphne Koller, Stanford University, for uncertainty and belief
  • Jon Stillman, General Electric, for temporal aspects
  • * Manuela Veloso, CMU, for case-based plans
  • * David Etherington, CIRL, University of Oregon, for scheduling
  • * Larry Lafferty for performance issues
  • * Adam Pease, Teknowledge, for relationship to OMWG Core Plan Representation
  • * James Allen, Rochester University, for multi-modal user dialogue and planning in temporally complex worlds with uncertainty
• Austin Tate proposed:
  • * Jintae Lee, University of Hawaii, for relationship to PIF Working Group
  • * Steve Polyak, University of Edinburgh, for relationship to NIST PSL
  • * Pat Hayes, University of West Florida, for formalization, semantics and temporal models
  • * Chris Menzel, KBSI, for formalization, semantics and IDEF
  • * Micheal Gruninger, University of Toronto, for formalization, semantics and TOVE ontology
  • Jon Doyle, MIT, for Problem Solving Methods representation.
  • * Darrell Woelk, MCC, for collaborative process management
• David Etherington proposed:
  • * Steve Smith, CMU, for constraint-based scheduling
  • * Brian Drabble, CIRL, University of Oregon, for workflow,

• User Requirements Panel
• Specialism Experts Panel
• Formalization Review Panel

The up-to-date list of participants on each panel is here. The charge to panel members is listed here.

1. Previous Relevant ARPI Work
   • Previous ARPI work on Plan Representations and relevant Plan Ontology Constructors Group (POCG) work and convergence on a core plan/process/activity meta-model - Austin Tate - Slide Show, PowerPoint, Index
   • Previous ARPI experience,
   • References (PostScript 250K)
2. Relevant OMWG CPR Work
   • Work on a core plan meta-model in OMWG CPR, JTF ATD and the JFACC Program. Summary of where they differ from KRSL-Plans - Adam Pease - Slide Show, PowerPoint, Index
3. Relevant NIST PSL Work
   • Outline of NIST PSL Phase 1 on Requirements Capture - Steve Polyak - Slide Show, PowerPoint, Index
   • Outline of NIST PSL Phase 2 work on candidate representations and analysis against phase 1 requirements (with an emphasis on ARPI participants plan representations) - Steve Polyak - Analysis of Candidate PSL Process/Plan Representations
4. Requirements for a Plan Representation
   • Review of notes from ARPI Program Managers and Steering Group Members - Notes here.
   • Classification by Steve Polyak ( Requirements for a Rich, Shared Plan Representation)
5. Outline of nominated target applications
   • AITS War Plan - Todd Carrico.
   • CommonP: The JFACC Plan Representation - Bill Swartout - Slide Show, PowerPoint, Index
   • Act: A Procedural Representation for Activity - Karen Myers - Slide Show, PowerPoint, Index

Attempt at SPAR 0.0

A number of immediate points were made that needed change to create an initial model. These changes have been made in version 0.0a which will act as the starting point for the work of the Core Group.

Outline SPAR Report

1. Introduction [AT]
2. History [AT,AP]
3. Process/Schedule/Tasks [AT]
4. Requirements [SP]
5. The Product
   • Case frame [AP]
   • Ontology [AT] (diagram - [AP])
   • Object model [AP,TC]
   • Language [BS]
   • Clarifications and discussion [KM]
6. Design Issues [KM]
   • User Requirements Panel issues [AP,TC]
   • Specialism Experts Panel issues [SP,AT]
   • Formalization Review Panel issues [SP,AT]
7. Conclusions [AT]
8. Acknowledgements [AT]
9. References [AT]
10. Appendices
    • Language BNF [BS]
    • CORBA IDL [AP]
    • Java Reference Implementation - Java Code on disk [AP]
    • Formal Axioms [KM]

• Briefings [TC]
• Document [AT,SP]
• Web [AT,SP]

TC would coordinate the creation of a SPAR briefing, initially to be given by TC at the DARPA ISO Offsite meeting on 22-Oct-97. This would then be revised and extended to become the 1 hour briefing to ARPI at the San Francisco workshp on 4/6-Nov-97.

AT would begin the SPAR document and seek input from others for their sections. The publication date is 31-Oct-97. However, it was recognised that the availability of a draft to panel members a week earlier would be valuable to make productive use of the ARPI San Francisco workshop opportunity.

The next meeting will be a working session during the ARPI Workshop in San Francisco on 4/6-Nov-97. It is intended that a small number of people from the Panels (probably from the Specialism Experts Panel) would be invited to give immediate reactions to the presentations.

The following meeting is planned for the afternoon of 6-Nov-97 following the ARPI Workshop in San Diego. AT will liaise with Tina Neff at PRC to make arrangements for a meeting room at the workshop hotel in Downtown San Francisco.

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