Thispaperdescribesthe use of superveniencein integrating planningand reaction in complex,dynamicenvironments. ienceis a formof abstractionwithaffinities both action in AIplanningsystemsandto partitioning schemesin hierarchical control systems.Theuse of supervenieneecanbedistilled to an easy-to-stateconstraintonthe designof multileveldynamic-worldp "lanningsystems:worldknowledgeup, goals down.Wepresent the supervenience architecturewhichembodiesthis constraint, andcontrastit to thc subsumptionarchitecture of Brooks.Wedescribethe performanceof an implementationof the supervcnience architecture on a problemin the HomeBotdomain,and we concludewitha discussionof the role that supcrveniencecan playin future dynamic-worldplanningsystems.
Lee Spector, James A. Hendler