Abstract

O-Plan2 is a command, planning and control architecture which has an open modular structure intended to allow experimentation on or replacement of various components. The research is seeking to isolate functionality that may be generally required in a number of applications and across a number of different planning, scheduling and control systems. The aim of this paper is to describe the Constraint Associator which is resident in the database manager (which looks after the plan state) and which forms a new core components of the O-Plan2 architecture. The constraint Associator mediates between the decisions made by the decision making parts of the architecture i.e. knowledge sources and the underlying constraint managers. This paper describes the motivation for the development of the constraint associator and the way in which plan constraints are represented and handled in the O-Plan2 architecture. It gives details of a rational reconstruction of the constraint management interfaces which were needed to support the constraint associator. These guidelines are now being used as a design principle within the latest version of O-Plan2.

Citations