ORTAC+ : A User Friendly Domain Specific Language for Multi-Agent Mission Planning

TL;DR

ORTAC+ is a user-friendly domain-specific language designed for military mission planning that enables natural modeling of tactical missions and integrates with existing planners for reliable results.

Contribution

The paper introduces ORTAC+, a high-level language tailored for end-users in military contexts, bridging usability and compatibility with standard planning tools.

Findings

Enables natural mission modeling for military users

Ensures reliable plan generation through high-level constructs

Provides seamless translation to PDDL for planning compatibility

Abstract

A tactical military unit is a complex system composed of many agents such as infantry, robots, or drones. Given a mission, an automated planner can find an optimal plan. Therefore, the mission itself must be modeled. The problem is that languages like PDDL are too low-level to be usable by the end-user: an officer in the field. We present ORTAC+, a language and a planning tool designed for this end-user. Its main objective is to allow a natural modeling of the mission, to minimize the risk of bad modeling, and thus obtain reliable plans. The language offers high-level constructs specifically designed to describe tactical missions, but at the same time has clear semantics allowing a translation to PDDL, to take advantage of state-of-the-art planners.