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Interactive Resource Management in the COMIREM Planner

Stephen F. Smith, David Hildum, David Crimm

Intelligent Coordination and Logistics LabThe Robotics Institute

Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh PA 15213

sfs@cs.cmu.edu412-268-8811

Carnegie MellonIJCAI-03 Workshop on Mixed-Initiative Intelligent Systems - August 9 2003

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Outline of Talk

– Brief Introduction to Comirem– Mixed-Initiative Perspective– Connection to Workshop Themes

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COMIREM

A light-weight, interactive system for resource management in continuous planning domains

Domain: SOF planning Motivating Themes:

– Resource management cannot be considered a separable post-process to plan generation

– Planning is an ill-structured, iterative process that is rarely amenable to total automation and not well supported by batch-oriented solution generators

– Planning involves collaboration among (increasingly) mobile decision making agents

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Embassy Rescue Scenario

HomeAirport

StagingArea

Embassy

Rebel Controlled

Airport

RebelEnclave

250AmCitsTask Force Alpha

(24 Troops)

Task Force Charlie(56 Troops)

Task Force Bravo(64 Troops)

Bridge

Available at Home Airport– 7 MH60s– 5 MH47s– 5 MC-130Hs– 2 C-141s– 1 AC-130U

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Mixed-Initiative Design Goals

Adjustable decision-making autonomy– User will want to make decisions at different levels of detail in

different contexts

Translation of system models and decisions– User should be able to inject decisions without having to understand

system search models and vice-versa be able to effectively interpret system results

Incremental problem solving– Constraints typically become known incrementally– Controlled change facilitates comprehension– Solution stability is crucial in continuous planning domains

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Constraint Management and Search Infra-structure

Comirem is a flexible times scheduler:– Activity start and end times float to the extent that problem constraints

allow– Activities requiring the same resources are sequenced

Simple Temporal Problem (STP) constraint network solver is used to manage temporal constraints– Constraint graph of time points (nodes) and distances (arcs)

Higher-level domain model super-imposed to add reasoning about resource usage constraints– Required and provided capabilities– Resource location (positioning, de-positioning, repositioning)– Resource carrying capacity (manifests and configurations)

Decisions (user and system) are made opportunistically

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Elements of Mixed-Initiative ApproachHighly interactive - spreadsheet metaphor

Levels of automated decision-making– Individual decision expansion and options– Temporal and resource feasibility checking– Automated solution generation -biased by user goals and

preferences– User over-ride of any constraint in system model

Interaction via mutually understood domain model– Translation of domain model edits into internal constraint models– Complementary use of domain model to convey and interpret

resultsVisualization of decision impact

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Generating Options

Deploy(A,B,?Res)Manifest: 120

Light-Transport-ActivityMH-60

Capacity: 14

MH-47Capacity: 40

Resource Reqs.

instance

MH-60-5MH-60-4MH-60-3MH-60-2MH-60-1

MH-60-4MH-60-3MH-60-2MH-47-1

instance

MH-60 Option MH-47 Option

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Generating Conflict Resolution Options

Move1xMH-60

EST

LFTA

B

Dur(MH-60) > LFT(Move) - EST(Move)

Move(A,B,MH-60)

Airdrop-Activity

MH-60Nom. Speed: 150

C130Nom. Speed: 200

Res reqs.

instance

instance

TF-Engage-Time

DueDate-ConstraintTF-Deploy-Time

StartTime-Constraint

instance

Option2: Assign a faster resource

Option1: Override computed duration

Option3: Delay engagement

Option4: Deploy earlier

<dMH-60, dMH-60>

<0,ddMove><relMove,∞ >

CZ Detected CycleMagnitude: m

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Comirem Positions on Workshop Issues

Task - User manipulates goals, constraints and preferences; system solves within specified parameters

Control - User in control; system offers decision options wherever possible and solutions when user delegates

Awareness - Mutually understandable domain model used to bridge user and system models

Communication - Summarization, visualization of decision impact

Evaluation - increased efficiency/effectiveness; system manages complexity; user brings knowledge outside of system models

Architecture - Spreadsheet model of interaction; incremental change

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END

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Functional Capabilities

Interactive Planning and Resource Allocation– Option generation– Visualization of decision impact– Requirements and capabilities editing– Automated assignment and feasibility checking– What-if exploration

Resource Configuration– Construction and allocation of aggregate resources

Execution Management– Resource tracking– Plan tracking– Conflict analysis

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Move11xHMMVV

Move21xHMMVV

A More Complex Conflict Involving Shared Resources

• Resource sequencing constraint in conjunction with the timing constraints of Move1 and Move 2 causes “cycle”

EST

LFT

B

A

Dur(HMMVV) > LFT(Move) - EST(Move)

C

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Comirem User

Interface

Gantt and Vector Activity Views

Resource Usage & Positioning Resource Tracking

Resource Aggregation

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