Representing a robotic domain using temporal description logics

A temporal logic for representing and reasoning on a robotic domain is presented. Actions are represented by describing what is true while the action itself is occurring, and plans are constructed by temporally relating actions and world states. The temporal language is a member of the family of Description Logics, which are characterized by high expressivity combined with good computational properties. The logic is used to organize the domain actions and plans in a taxonomy. The classification and recognition tasks, together with the subsumption task form the basis for action management. An action/plan description can be automatically classified into a taxonomy; an action/plan instance can be recognized to take place at a certain moment from the observation of what is happening in the world during a time interval.