Heuristics and Search for Domain-independent Planning (HSDIP)

Heuristics and search algorithms are the two key components of heuristic search, one of the main approaches to many variations of domain-independent planning, including classical planning, temporal planning, planning under uncertainty and adversarial planning. This workshop seeks to understand the underlying principles of current heuristics and search methods, their limitations, ways for overcoming those limitations, as well as the synergy between heuristics and search. HSDIP-17 will be a part of the ICAPS 2017 conference.

For questions please contact the HSDIP Chairs

Topics and Objectives

State-space search guided by heuristics, automatically derived from the problem representation, has been one of the most popular, and arguably one of the most successful, approaches to domain-independent planning in the last decade. While there has been significant developments in the design of planning heuristics, such that there are now many different kinds of heuristics, and some theories of how they relate to each other have begun to emerge, there is also a growing realization that the search algorithm plays an equally important role in the approach. Recent work has highlighted some of the weaknesses in well-known search algorithms, but also opportunities to exploit synergies between the heuristic calculation and the search control to improve both, while relying on domain-independent, declarative descriptions of the state space.State-space search guided by heuristics, automatically derived from the problem representation, has been one of the most popular, and arguably one of the most successful, approaches to domain-independent planning in the last decade. While there has been significant developments in the design of planning heuristics, such that there are now many different kinds of heuristics, and some theories of how they relate to each other have begun to emerge, there is also a growing realization that the search algorithm plays an equally important role in the approach. Recent work has highlighted some of the weaknesses in well-known search algorithms, but also opportunities to exploit synergies between the heuristic calculation and the search control to improve both, while relying on domain-independent, declarative descriptions of the state space.

The workshop on Heuristics and Search for Domain-Independent Planning (HSDIP) is the ninth workshop in a series that started with the "Heuristics for Domain-Independent Planning" (HDIP) workshops at ICAPS 2007. At ICAPS 2012, the workshop was changed to its current name and scope to explicitly encourage work on search for domain-independent planning. The workshop on Heuristics and Search for Domain-Independent Planning (HSDIP) is the ninth workshop in a series that started with the "Heuristics for Domain-Independent Planning" (HDIP) workshops at ICAPS 2007. At ICAPS 2012, the workshop was changed to its current name and scope to explicitly encourage work on search for domain-independent planning.

Examples of typical topics for submissions to this workshop are:

• Automatic derivation of heuristic estimators for domain-independent planning
• Search techniques for domain-independent planning
• Synergy between heuristics and search in domain-independent planning
• Challenging domains for heuristic search planning

Submissions

Please format submissions in AAAI style (see instructions in the Author Kit at http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Templates/AuthorKit17.zip) and keep them to at most 9 pages including references. Authors considering submitting to the workshop papers rejected from the main conference, please ensure you do your utmost to address the comments given by ICAPS reviewers. Please do not submit papers that are already accepted for the main conference to the workshop.

Submissions should be made through EasyChair: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=hsdip2017.

Every submission will be reviewed by two members of the organizing committee according to the usual criteria such as relevance to the workshop, significance of the contribution, and technical quality. The review process will be single-blind: the authors' identity will be known to the reviewers, but not vice versa.

Submissions sent to other conferences are allowed if this do not interfere with their submission rules. Submissions under double-blind review in another conference must be anonymous. In particular, submissions of papers under revision in IJCAI17 must be anonymous

The workshop is meant to be an open and inclusive forum, and we encourage papers that report on work in progress or that do not fit the mold of a typical conference paper.

At least one author of each accepted paper must attend the workshop in order to present the paper. Authors must register for the ICAPS main conference in order to attend the workshop. There will be no separate workshop-only registration.

In order to encourage the submission of original papers to the workshops, the ICAPS council has announced an initiative to fast-track strong workshop papers from one year to the main track of the next ICAPS. Up to two papers will be recommended by the HSDIP organizers. The ICAPS 2018 program chairs will have a look at these papers and the workshop reviews and invite the authors of these papers to resubmit them to the ICAPS 2018 main track.

Important Dates

• Paper submission deadline: March 17, 2017 (UTC-12 timezone)
• Notification of acceptance: April 7, 2017
• Camera-ready paper submissions: May 22, 2017
• Workshop date: June 20, 2017

Organizing Committee

• J. Benton NASA Ames Research Center & AAMU-RISE, USA
• Nir Lipovetzky University of Melbourne, Australia
• Florian Pommerening University of Basel, Switzerland
• Miquel Ramırez University of Melbourne, Australia
• Enrico Scala ANU, Australia
• Jendrik Seipp University of Basel, Switzerland
• Álvaro Torralba Saarland University, Germany

Schedule

Proceedings

Accepted Papers