Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Drummond, Mark.
The Entropy Reduction Engine architecture for integrating planning, scheduling, and control is examined. The architecture is motivated through a NASA mission scenario and a brief list of design goals. An overview is presented of the Entropy Reduction Engine architecture by describing its major components, their interactions, and the way in which these interacting components satisfy the design goals.
The plan net formalism presented in this paper is a language for expressing possible actions independent of any particular plan. Plan nets encode non-deterministic control programs which specify the local conditions under which actions may be taken. A two stage analysis synthesizes situated control rules which act to reduce this non-deterministic choice such that all remaining alternatives for action necessarily satisfy any given goals. Action execution can precede situated control rule synthesis: situated control rules simply help ensure that actions are first steps on the way to eventual goal satisfaction. Situated control rules inform action; they do not define it.