====================================================================== 2018 International Planning Competition PROBABILISTIC TRACKS Call for Participation https://ipc2018-probabilistic.bitbucket.io ====================================================================== The International Planning Competition is organized in the context of the International Conference on Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS). It empirically evaluates state-of-the-art planning systems on a number of benchmark problems. The goals of the IPC are to promote planning research, highlight challenges in the planning community and provide new and interesting problems as benchmarks for future research. The probabilistic tracks of the IPC have been started in 2004; the 6th edition will run in 2018 and conclude together with ICAPS, in June 2018, in Delft (Netherlands). This time it is organized by Thomas Keller, Scott Sanner and Buser Say. For IPC 2018, there are five different probabilistic tracks: - discrete MDP: planners must maximize the expected reward in a discrete, finite-horizon MDP - continuous MDP: planners must maximize the expected reward in a mixed discrete and continuous, finite-horizon MDP - discrete SSP: planners must minimize the expected cost to reach a goal in a discrete SSP - discrete data-based MDP: planners must maximize the expected reward in a discrete, finite-horizon MDP with access to a set of sample trajectories rather than a declarative model - continuous data-based MDP: planners must maximize the expected reward in a mixed discrete and continuous, finite-horizon MDP with access to a set of sample trajectories rather than a declarative model The discrete MDP track has been held before in 2014 and 2011. We use the same subset of RDDL that has been used in the last competition for this track. If there is interest, we will also provide a (lifted) PPDDL description for the discrete MDP track. The continuous MDP track is a new track that will use RDDL. Competitors will shape the details of this new track including the expressiveness of the RDDL models and requested compilation targets for the RDDL compiler. We solicit input on all competition aspects from interested competitors. The discrete SSP track has been created as a track that uses - with the exception of stochastic outcomes - the same fragment of PDDL as the popular classical IPC tracks. Both a (lifted) (P)PDDL and a RDDL description of the tasks will be provided. We hope to attract a large number of competitors by offering a track with such a low entry barrier. Furthermore, we offer two data-based tracks, one each for the discrete MDP and the continuous MDP track. Rather than providing a declarative model of the MDP to the planners, we provide a set of sample trajectories, each consisting of a number of (state,action,state') triples equal to the problem's finite horizon. The reward function will be provided in declarative form. If there is interest, we will additionally offer a data-based discrete SSP track where sample trajectories and a goal description are provided to the planners. A competing team may participate for any track, so competitors are strongly encouraged to participate in every track supported by their planners. Details regarding the rules and evaluation criteria of all tracks can be found at the competition website. As in previous editions, the competitors must submit the source code of their planners that will be run by the organizers on the actual competition domains/problems, unknown to the competitors until this time. This way no fine-tuning of the planners will be possible. All competitors must submit an abstract (max. 300 words) and a 4-page paper describing their planners. After the competition, we encourage the participants to analyze the results of their planner and submit an extended version of their abstract. An important requirement for IPC 2018 competitors is to give the organizers the right to post their paper and the source code of their planners on the official IPC 2018 web site. Registration ------------ Potential participants are requested to subscribe to the mailing list at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ipc2018-probabilistic and send us an email expressing interest to ipc2018-probabilistic-organizers@googlegroups.com. Information on submitting the planner will be provided on the mailing list and the homepage later on. Tentative Schedule ------------------ -July '17: Call for Domains available -July '17: Call for Participation available -November '17: Domain submission deadline -November '17: Demo problems provided -January '18: Initial planner submission -February '18: Planners submission deadline -May '18: Planner abstract submission deadline -June '18: Announcement of the results and winners at ICAPS'18 -July '18: Results analysis deadline We are looking forward to an exciting competition! Organizers ---------- Thomas Keller, University of Basel, Switzerland Scott Sanner, University of Toronto, Canada Buser Say, University of Toronto, Canada __________________________________________ Mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ipc2018-probabilistic Website: https://ipc2018-probabilistic.bitbucket.io/ Contact: ipc2018-probabilistic-organizers@googlegroups.com