This tutorial is about the deliberative methods and techniques a computational agent may use for planning (choosing which actions to perform in which circumstances) and acting (deciding how to perform those actions in the actor's environment and context), in order to achieve some objective. AI research has concentrated more on the planning part than the acting part, but both parts are essential.
The tutorial will cover a comprehensive set of methods and techniques that a computational agent -- an actor -- can use for deliberative planning and acting; i.e., for deciding which actions to perform and how to perform them in order to achieve some objective. There are several different kinds of models and algorithms for planning and acting, each of which is more suitable for some situations than others: deterministic, hierarchical, temporal, nondeterministic and probabilistic. We will discuss which kinds of models are best in which kinds of situations, and will describe automated planning and acting techniques for some of them.
This tutorial is complementary to Tutorial T29 - Introduction to Planning Models and Methods, by Hector Geffner and Blai Bonet.