Research Project: Modeling and Solving Complex Problems

Project still available?

The project is not yet taken by another student.

It might however be that I don't have capacities left in general. Please check out the main page on research projects to see whether I'm maxed out. (I don't post this here so that I don't have to update all my project descriptions in case I don't accept more students.)

Requirements

• This project can be carried out as 6 pt or as 12 pt project.
• You don't need background on AI planning as learning that in the first two weeks should be easy. But since this is only a 12 pt or even a 6 pt project (meaning that time is limited) it'd be quite beneficial if you had at least a basic understanding of the respective technology that's being used (i.e., SAT or classical planning) before you start the project. (Still, not strictly required, but it would help if you could work on these foundations before the project formally starts.)
• Depending on the exact topic chosen (see description below), it might be beneficial to have taken the Algorithms course.
• This is a project that can be taken by any student, also if your marks are not primarily in the HD range.

Project Description

TLDR:

In this project we will first decide on some complex problem/procedure to be done, for example an operation on some data structure like the insertion of a node into a search tree. The chosen problem/procedure will then be modeled using AI planning (classical or hierarchical) and then solved with state-of-the-art solvers.

The slightly longer version:

This project primarily aims at producing new benchmark domains for AI planning systems. We are free in which problem we model, but one possibility is the creation of search trees, such as Binary Search trees (BSTs), AVL trees, or Red/Black trees. Both the insertion as well deletion of nodes might require further operations, like re-balancing of the tree. All these operations should then be implemented via planning. Once the model is complete, we will evaluate various problems using state-of-the-art planning systems.

Further Reading

This project is either on classical planning. For this, you may find my reading recommendations on my page with resources for students helpful. But please don't invest more than a few minutes (if any) before your application, since I don't want you to waste any time before I formally agree to supervise your project. I very strongly advise to listen to (and follow) my hands-on introduction on classical planning that's linked there as well. (If we choose planning to model one of the problems.)