Patent ID: 7640221

Claim:
A computer implemented method for achieving a desired goal, goals or sub-goals in a simulated domain, in which the simulated domain has a number of operators associated therewith and is related to logistic operations or route navigation in a business, manufacturing or game domain, said method comprising: receiving information pertaining to the simulated domain, wherein the simulated domain and items in the simulated domain are representations of one or more physical objects or kinds thereof and/or environments in the real world or in a game world; specifying a number of the items and/or a number of classes of the items in the simulated domain and whether each item and or each class of items is an affectable obstacle or a non-affectable obstacle; wherein an operator is operable to cause a change to one said affectable obstacle under one or more circumstances and is not operable to cause a change to non-affectable obstacles, wherein the operators are actions that can be performed in the simulated domain, and wherein one or more of the operators are capable of being causally related to one or more other operators in a current simulated domain state, developing one or more candidate plans during a candidate plan development phase by: determining which of the operators are capable of being applied based on a respective current simulated domain state either directly or by interacting with affectable obstacles, wherein an applicable one or ones of the operators are enabled, and simulating one or more effects due to the one or more enabled operators associated with the simulated domain; iteratively proceeding towards one or more desired goals by sequentially stepping through numerous simulated domain states; and if a respective desired goal cannot be reached or an affectable obstacle cannot be changed, fixed, solved or overcome from a current simulated domain state, proceeding to a candidate plan refining phase which includes: returning to one or more previous simulated domain states in order to change, fix, solve, or overcome the affectable obstacle; and modifying one or more current candidate plans or returning to the candidate plan development phase to create one or more new candidate plans; wherein upon completion of the candidate plan development phase or the candidate plan refining phase a final plan is implemented in a real world environment or in a game environment for achieving the desired goal, goals or sub-goals.