Planning with Pr/T nets

A plan generating tool for robotic applications is described. The tool, called ROPES (robot plan generating system), is based on modeling STRIPS-like rules by a special type of Petri nets called predicate/transition(Pr/T) nets. Once a set of STRIPS-like rules gets translated into its Pr/T net equivalence, an analysis technique of the Pr/T nets, called the T-invariant method, is utilized to generate robot plans. The research results have indicated that ROPES: provides a domain-independent formalism that blends together the concepts of the state of the world, actions, goals, and plans; supports conjunctive and hierarchical planning: handles nonlinear plans in a effective way; and offers facilities for monitoring plan execution and recovery