CMU MHCI '04

Project Overview


Mixed-Initiative Constraint-Based Planning

Mixed initiative constraint based planning is a complex planning system that requires extensive interactions between a human planner and a computer planner which works as an optimal scheduler to maximize on one or more dimensions while maintaining given relationships (i.e., constraints) between activities. The primary goal of mixed initiative planning is to maximize the potential of human planners and computer planners by ensuring each do the tasks to which they are best suited. Human planners are experts at formulating goals and setting constraints, and computer planners can perform computationally intensive tasks to create plans which meet those goals and satisfy those constraints. When adequate solutions cannot be found, human planners must reason about constraints in order to solve problems, and relax constraints to satisfice. In order for this process to be successful, humans must be able to convey the right information to the computer, and humans must be able to understand the decisions that the computer has made.