Diagnosis Using Action-Based Hierarchies for Optimal Real-Time Performance

摘要

To respond effectively in real time, an agent needs to be able to dealeffectively with differing availability of information. In particular, although the agent ideally would like to be able to diagnose one or more particular faults that may be present at a given time, a deadline may prevent it from doing so because prior to the deadline it is required to act or face a catastrophic outcome. Thus, an agent should have available to it a set of actions some of which are appropriate, but not optimal, for large classes of faults and some of which are appropriate for specific faults. My thesis presents an alternative heuristic, the action-based heuristic, which may be used to structure a decision tree; the resulting structure together with the actions themselves is called an action-based hierarchy.