Planning with Qualitative Models for Robotic Domains

Abstract

We aim to develop an online method for learning robot behaviours that requires only a small number of trials, making it practical for use on a real robot. A hybrid method includes a symbolic planner, using qualitative reasoning, that constructs an approximate solution to a control problem. This approximate solution provides constraints for a numerical optimisation algorithm, which is used to refine the qualitative plan into an operational policy. The method is demonstrated on a multi-tracked robot intended for urban search and rescue. 1.