Automata-based Optimal Planning with Relaxed Specifications

TL;DR

This paper presents an automata-based framework for robot planning with relaxed specifications, enabling minimal relaxation policies through a novel three-way automaton construction that balances task constraints and deadlines.

Contribution

It introduces a new automata-based approach with a three-way product automaton for optimal planning with relaxed specifications, including a bi-objective optimization for deadlines and task modifications.

Findings

Efficient computation of minimal relaxation policies using shortest path algorithms.

Effective balancing of temporal deadlines and task modifications in planning.

Case study demonstrating practical applicability and performance.

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce an automata-based framework for planning with relaxed specifications. User relaxation preferences are represented as weighted finite state edit systems that capture permissible operations on the specification, substitution and deletion of tasks, with complex constraints on ordering and grouping. We propose a three-way product automaton construction method that allows us to compute minimal relaxation policies for the robots using standard shortest path algorithms. The three-way automaton captures the robot's motion, specification satisfaction, and available relaxations at the same time. Additionally, we consider a bi-objective problem that balances temporal relaxation of deadlines within specifications with changing and deleting tasks. Finally, we present the runtime performance and a case study that highlights different modalities of our framework.