STRIPS-like Operator Representation

STRIPS, or the Stanford Research Institute Problem Solver, was proposed by Fikes and Nilsson in 1971 and included a representation for operators that was intended to solve (or at least address) the frame problem. STRIPS uses well-formed formulas of the first-order predicate calculus and specifies operators by a precondition list, an add-list and a delete-list. The preconditions must be satisfied by the current state before an operator is applied. The effects of the operator are given by the add and delete lists. The add-list adds new, instantiated well-formed formulas (or wffs, logical descriptions of the world) to the current state. The delete-list removes wffs from the current state.

Although STRIPS did resolve some of the issues related to the frame problem, it (and all systems that use a STRIPS-like representation) suffers from a requirement for explicitness -- all actions (including secondary effects) must be included in the model of the operator. In complex worlds, this is often impossible.

Architectures Utilizing STRIPS-like Operators include:


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