CMSC 722, AI Planning, Spring 2012

Dana Nau

Tentative schedule

I'll update this as we go along

Jan 25
- Syllabus, Chap. 1, start Chap. 2
Jan 30
- Finish Chap. 2, Chap. 3
Feb 1
- Discuss term projects [pdf, ppt]
- Chap. 4, start Chap. 5
Feb 6
- Chap. 2 homework, Chap. 3 homework, finish Chap. 5
Feb 8
- Chap. 6, start Chap. 4 homework
Feb 13

Finish Chap. 4 homework, Chap. 5 homework
Start Chap. 7
How many of you have groups for your term projects?

Feb 15
- Chap. 6 homework, finish Chap. 7
Feb 20
- Start Chap. 16
Feb 22
- Chap. 7 homework, finish Chap. 16
Feb 27
- finish Chap. 16, start Chap. 17
Feb 29
- Finish Chap. 17, Intro to Part 3, start Chap. 9
Mar 4 - term-project proposals due at noon
Mar 5
- Chap. 16 homework, Chapt. 17 homework
Mar 6 - Late proposals (5% off) due at noon
Mar 7
- proposal presentations:

continue Chap. 9, briefly discuss the midterm exam

Mar 12

proposal presentations:

Samala, Bercea, & Jacobs
Buntain & Dasler
Bullen, Memory, Smith, & Johnson

Mar 14
- proposal presentations:
Mar 18–25 - spring break
Mar 26
- Review for midterm exam [pdf, ppt]
Mar 28
- midterm exam
- See the password-protected page for examples of previous exams
Apr 2
- Finish Chap. 9, start Chap. 10
Apr 4

Finish Chap. 10, start Chap. 11

Apr 9
- hand back exams, Chap. 9 homework
Apr 11
- How to run experiments [pdf, ppt]
- Chap. 9 homework
Apr 16

Chap. 10 homework, continue Chap. 11
Section 14.3

Apr 18
- finish Chap. 11, start Section 14.3
Apr 23
- finish Section 14.3
Apr 25
- Chap. 11 homework
Apr 29 - term projects due by noon
Apr 30
- Section 14.3 homework
- Review for final exam [pdf, ppt]
May 1 - late projects (5% off) due by noon
May 2
- term-project presentations
May 7
- term-project presentations
May 9

term-project presentations

May 15, 1:30-3:30
- final exam (see the university exam schedule)

Things for this class

Piazza
- CMSC 722 enrollment link
Syllabus (pdf)
Password-protected materials
- examples of exams and term projects
Automated Planning: Theory and Practice web site
- Errata list for the book
Survey paper on MDPs
- to supplement the book chapter on MDP
Paper on FastForward

Lecture slides

I'll update these as we go along

pdf, ppt: Chap. 1, Introduction
pdf, ppt: Chap. 2, Representations for Classical Planning
pdf, ppt: Chap. 3, Complexity of Classical Planning
pdf, ppt: Chap. 4, State-Space Planning
pdf, ppt: Chap. 5, Plan-Space Planning
pdf, ppt: Chap. 6, Planning-Graph Techniques
pdf, ppt: Chap. 7, Propositional Satisfiability Techniques
pdf, ppt: Intro. to Part 3
pdf, ppt: Chap. 9, Heuristics in Planning
pdf, ppt: Chap. 10, Control Rules in Planning
pdf, ppt: Chap. 11, Hierarchical Task Network Planning
pdf, ppt: Chap. 14 sec. 14.3, Planning with Chronicles
pdf, ppt: Chap. 15, Planning and Resource Scheduling
pdf, ppt: Chap. 16, Planning on MDPs
pdf, ppt: Chap. 17, Planning as Model Checking

Other links

The ICAPS conferences
International Planning Competitions
List of AI planning software
- old, but still might be useful

Homework assignments

Please start each homework assignment when I finish the corresponding chapter. We'll discuss the answers in class, about a week later.

Chapter 1: the assignment is at the end of the syllabus
Chapter 2: 2.2, 2.6, 2.12
Chapter 3: 3.5 (hint: see Section 4.5 of the book)
Chapter 4: 4.4, 4.10, ~~4.14~~, 4.20
Chapter 5: 5.7, 5.8
- Here are some corrections to 5.7
Chapter 6: 6.2, 6.4, and one more problem (see below)
- For 6.2(b), don't try to draw all of level 2. For level 2, just draw the non-maintenance actions, and tell what each of them is mutex to.
- Here's the third homework problem. In the book, Graphplan uses only positive literals, but in my presentation I used both positive and negative literals. Resolve the apparent inconsistency.
Chapter 7: 7.2
Chapter 9: 9.1, 9.6
- Revised version of 9.1: Consider the planning problem in Example 6.1. In the initial state, compute the FastForward heuristic for each of the applicable actions.
Chapter 10: 10.3, 10.8, 10.9
Chapter 11: 11.1, 11.15, 11.22, 11.23
Chapter 14: 14.9, 14.11
Chapter 15: 15.1
Chapter 16: 16.6, 16.8
Chapter 17: 17.2, 17.4

Web Accessibility