English

The Complexity of Planning Problems With Simple Causal Graphs

Artificial Intelligence 2011-11-02 v1

Abstract

We present three new complexity results for classes of planning problems with simple causal graphs. First, we describe a polynomial-time algorithm that uses macros to generate plans for the class 3S of planning problems with binary state variables and acyclic causal graphs. This implies that plan generation may be tractable even when a planning problem has an exponentially long minimal solution. We also prove that the problem of plan existence for planning problems with multi-valued variables and chain causal graphs is NP-hard. Finally, we show that plan existence for planning problems with binary state variables and polytree causal graphs is NP-complete.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1111.0056,
  title  = {The Complexity of Planning Problems With Simple Causal Graphs},
  author = {Omer Giménez and Anders Jonsson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1111.0056},
  year   = {2011}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T19:28:48.177Z