Third edition of Artificial Intelligence: foundations of computational agents, Cambridge University Press, 2023 is now available (including the full text).
14.1.2 Event Calculus
The second representation, event calculus, models how the truth value of relations changes because of events occurring at certain times. Time can be modeled as either continuous or discrete.
Events are modeled as occurring at particular times. Event E occurring at time T is written as event(E,T).
Events make some relations true and some no longer true:
- initiates(E,R,T) is true if event E makes primitive relation R true at time T.
- terminates(E,R,T) is true if event E makes primitive relation R no longer true at time T.
Time T is a parameter to initiates and terminates because the effect of an event can depend on what else is true at the time. For example, the effect of attempting to unlock a door depends on the position of the robot and whether it is carrying the appropriate key.
Relations are either true or false at any time. In event calculus, relations are reified, where holds(R,T) means that relation R is true at time T. This is analogous to having T as the last argument to R in situation calculus. The use of the meta-predicate holds allows general rules that are true for all relations.
Derived relations are defined in terms of primitive relations and other derived relations for the same time.
Primitive relation R holds at time T if an event occurred before T that made R true, and there was no intervening event that made R no longer true. This can be specified as follows:
event(E,T0) ∧
T0<T∧
initiates(E,R,T0) ∧
∼clipped(R,T0,T) .
clipped(R,T0,T) ←
event(E1,T1) ∧
terminates(E1,R,T1) ∧
T0<T1∧
T1<T.
The atom clipped(R,T0,T) means there is an event between times T0 and T that makes R no longer true; T0<T1 is true if time T0 is before time T1. Here ∼ indicates negation as failure, and so these clauses mean their completion.
Actions are represented in terms of what properties they initiate and terminate. As in situation calculus, the preconditions of actions are specified using the poss relation.
poss(pickup(Ag,Obj) ,T) .
terminates(pickup(Ag,Obj) ,sitting_at(Obj,Pos) ,T) ←
poss(pickup(Ag,Obj) ,T).
poss(pickup(Ag,Obj) ,T) ←
autonomous(Ag) ∧
Ag ≠Obj ∧
holds(at(Ag,Pos) ,T) ∧
holds(sitting_at(Obj,Pos) ,T) .
This implies that if a pickup is attempted when the preconditions do not hold, nothing happens. It is also possible to write clauses that specify what happens under different circumstances, such as when a pickup is attempted for an object that is being held by something else.
Given particular action occurrences, and making the complete knowledge assumption that all intervening events are specified, the top-down proof procedure with negation as failure can be used to prove what is true. For planning, the agent can use abduction.
