Co-sponsored by: GMU

Abstract:

Robust autonomy remains a difficult problem for complex, partially observable, and real-time environments such as robotics (e.g. mars rovers, underwater vehicles) and complex video games including Starcraft and Minecraft. Goal reasoning is a growing research area for controlling agents operating in these kinds of environments. Goal reasoning agents reason over their goals in response to unexpected changes in the environment. By monitoring their own execution, agents can detect if a situation is unexpected and if it will prevent them from achieving their goals. My research introduced new approaches for detecting unexpected situations (including failures) in the environment and in an agent’s own cognitive processes via monitoring their own cognition (i.e., meta-cognition). In this talk I will give a brief background on goal reasoning and automated planning, walk-through an example of a construction agent in the Minecraft video game, highlight my work on anomaly detection for plan execution in goal driven autonomy agents, and conclude with exciting areas for future work.

Location:
Room: Volgenau conference room 3507
Bldg: The Volgenau School of Engineering
George Mason University
4511 Patriot Circle
Fairfax, Virginia
22030