To block or not to block?

Abstract

The present work deals with the blocks world domain. While studying and analysing the theory about blocks world (BW) problems (BWP) an effective algorithm to solve instances was "discovered". This algorithm solves optimally many instances of blocks world problems and involves no search. The algorithm is backed up by ideas stated in Gupta and Nau (1991,1992) [5,6] and in Slaney and Thiebaux (1996,2001) [9,10]; the algorithm is suitable for programming and could serve to build an optimal block solver without forward search. The ideas behind this algorithm may constitute a basis for investigating other problems of more practical interest like the container loading problem and the bin packing problem. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.