Template-based multi-agent plan recognition for tactical situation assessment

A description is given of the concept of a multiagent plan-recognition model to assist a naval tactical decision maker in interpreting the activity of enemy ships and aircraft (agents) and predicting their goals and plans. Multiagent templates have been devised to capture the tactical decision-maker´s knowledge of how the plans of individual agents interact in pursuit of shared goals. The templates provide a flexible knowledge representation that allows the plan-recognition model to reason about different situation-specific variations in the ways multiagent plans may unfold. Template instances form hypotheses of future agent actions and are created in top-down/bottom-up manner. The hypotheses are then updated based on observations of agent behavior. The plan-recognition process features mechanisms to curb the proliferation of hypotheses possible in multiagent domains