Knowledge Engineering for Planning ROADMAP

Knowledge Engineering (KE) in AI Planning is the process that deals with the acquisition, validation and maintenance of planning domain models, and the selection and optimization of appropriate planning machinery to work on them. Hence, knowledge engineering processes support the planning process - they comprise all of the off-line, knowledge-based aspects of planning that are to do with the application being built.

The main characteristic of a domain model is that it is possible for an agent to use one to make rational deductions about the domain it represents. In particular to planning, it is commonly assumed that a model contains a declarative description of a domain and that the model's most important component is a set of action descriptions. The conventional wisdom is that a declarative model should be developed to a large extent independently of the planning engine and any other software that will form the rest of the application. This tends to ease the process of validating the domain model. It also gives the stakeholders and developers more flexibility in the use of their product and lessens the investment risk; an independent domain model may be used with a range of general planning engines, and may be used in many other ways not necessarily connected to planning.