Fwd: Real world blocksworld

["Subbarao Kambhampati" <rao@asu.edu>]

Here is some information about real world block stacking application ;1/2)

rao



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: William Cushing <william.cushing@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 8:34 AM
Subject: Fwd: Real world blocksworld
To: "Plan-Yochan@Parichaalak. Eas. Asu. Edu"
<plan-yochan@parichaalak.eas.asu.edu>


Indeed, Hector took the picture.  "Optimizing the Steel Plate Storage
Yard Crane Selection Problem", ICAPS 2007 (DC Poster).  I believe a
short paper version exists in the proceedings somewhere...

picture: http://picasaweb.google.es/hectorpal/Icaps2007/photo#5116899415236524914

that group's publication list:
http://www2.imm.dtu.dk/pubdb/public/publications.php?cmd=full_view&pubtype=&section=7


A related journal article on blockstacking (no joke, that's one of the
keywords):

http://www.springerlink.com/content/f60826852715v545/

(I attached the pdf if you don't have access to springer)

-Will


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: William Cushing <william.cushing@gmail.com>
 Date: Tue, Oct 2, 2007 at 7:07 PM
Subject: Real world blocksworld
To: plan-yochan <plan-yochan@parichaalak.eas.asu.edu>



http://picasaweb.google.es/hectorpal/Icaps2007/photo#5116899415236524914

This poster is on a domain which is very blocksworld-ish.  Also has
towers-of-hanois-ish in that there is no table of infinite capacity;
only stacks.  However, there appear to be no stacking restrictions
(objects don't have different weights or sizes that require sorted
stacks).

The steel plates *do* have individual names which distinguish them, a
highly important technical point (in the comparison with blocksworld).

The goal state is not a stacking configuration; the goal is to
minimize movement over time (as I understand it), each day one is to
deliver certain plates to a conveyer at the far right of the
coordinate system.    One has a nominal schedule when plates will
arrive and when they will be requested, allowing one to subgoal on
intermediate stacking configurations (or rather a sequence of stacking
configurations) which minimizes movements while achieving those
schedules.  (and then there is some online planning for each day as
requests and supplies deviate from nominal).

So many interesting components that bar applying FF directly to the
problem...but....a big core part of the technical problem *is*
blocksworld.  On ~1000 "blocks", in case anyone likes to think of
planning + scaling.

-Will