[PlanetKR] New Book: REASONING ROBOTS

[Mary-Anne Williams]

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REASONING ROBOTS
The Art and Science of Programming Robotic Agents

by MICHAEL THIELSCHER

SPRINGER APPLIED LOGIC SERIES 33

The  design of  autonomous robots is one of the  most exciting and
challenging  goals  of  Artificial  Intelligence.  Robotic  agents
constitute  a link between  knowledge representation and  symbolic
reasoning  on the one hand,  and robotics on the other hand.  This
book provides an in-depth and uniform  treatment of a mathematical
model  for robotic agents.  It also contains an  introduction to a
programming method and system based on this model.

The mathematical model,  known as the Fluent  Calculus,  describes
how to  use classical  first-order logic for  setting up  symbolic
models of dynamic worlds and for representing knowledge of actions
and  their effects.  Robotic agents use  this knowledge  and their
reasoning  facilities to  make  decisions  when they  follow high-
level, long-term strategies.   Issues covered in this book include
reasoning  about sensor  input,  acting under incomplete knowledge
and uncertainty,  planning,  intelligent troubleshooting, and many
other topics.

The mathematical  model is  supplemented by  a programming method,
called FLUX,  which allows readers to  design their  own reasoning
robotic agents.  The usage of  this method is  illustrated by many
example programs.  The book includes a detailed  description of an
implementation of FLUX in the standard programming language Prolog.
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