Foundations of Dispatchability for Simple Temporal Networks with Uncertainty

Luke Hunsberger, Roberto Posenato

2024

Abstract

Simple Temporal Networks (STNs) are a widely used formalism for representing and reasoning about temporal constraints on activities. The dispatchability of an STN was originally defined as a guarantee that a specific real-time execution algorithm would necessarily satisfy all of the STN’s constraints while preserving maximum flexibility but requiring minimal computation. A Simple Temporal Network with Uncertainty (STNU) augments an STN to accommodate actions with uncertain durations. However, the dispatchability of an STNU was defined differently: in terms of the dispatchability of its so-called STN projections. It was then argued informally that this definition provided a similar real-time execution guarantee, but without specifying the execution algorithm. This paper formally defines a real-time execution algorithm for STNUs that similarly preserves maximum flexibility while requiring minimal computation. It then proves that an STNU is dispatchable if and only if every run of that real-time execution algorithm necessarily satisfies the STNU’s constraints no matter how the uncertain durations play out. By formally connecting STNU dispatchability to an explicit real-time execution algorithm, the paper fills in important elements of the foundations of the dispatchability of STNUs.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Hunsberger L. and Posenato R. (2024). Foundations of Dispatchability for Simple Temporal Networks with Uncertainty. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART; ISBN 978-989-758-680-4, SciTePress, pages 253-263. DOI: 10.5220/0012360000003636

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icaart24,
author={Luke Hunsberger and Roberto Posenato},
title={Foundations of Dispatchability for Simple Temporal Networks with Uncertainty},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART},
year={2024},
pages={253-263},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012360000003636},
isbn={978-989-758-680-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART
TI - Foundations of Dispatchability for Simple Temporal Networks with Uncertainty
SN - 978-989-758-680-4
AU - Hunsberger L.
AU - Posenato R.
PY - 2024
SP - 253
EP - 263
DO - 10.5220/0012360000003636
PB - SciTePress