A Multi-Agent Extension of a Hierarchical Task Network Planning Formalism

Abstract

Describing planning domains using a common formalism promotes greater reuse of research, allowing a fairer comparison between different planners and approaches. Common planning formalisms for single-agent planning are already well established (e.g., PDDL, STRIPS, and HTN), but currently there is a shortage of multi-agent planning formalisms with clear semantics. In this paper, we propose a multi-agent extension of the Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) planning formalism for multi-agent planning problems. Our formalism, the Multi-Agent Hierarchical Task Network (MA-HTN), can be used to specify and represent multi-agent planning domains and problems. We provide a grammar with semantics for the domain and problem representation, and describe two case studies with the translation from multi-agent systems developed in JaCaMo to our MA-HTN formalism.