6.6.4 Temporal monitoring

The mission model includes starting and ending time constraints for every mission. Each time constraint consists of a temporal constraint type and an absolute time. The temporal constraint types in the EA are shown in Figure 6. These constraints require two types of monitoring tasks: detecting when time constraints in the plan have passed without being met, and detecting events that occur before their specified time.

We extended PRS with a domain-independent Timed Monitor mechanism that provides a general capability covering all our temporal monitoring requirements. This capability was implemented in the form of Acts, with some supporting LISP code. Four special types of timed monitors are provided, invoked by posting facts with the predicates Check-Not-Later-Than, Check-Not-Earlier-Than, Check-In-Window, and Check-Near-Time. We describe our implementation for one of these; the others are similar. The Act Check-Near-Time checks that an event occurs within a specified threshold of some time point and can be invoked by a fact of the form:

(Check-Near-Time event.1 time.1 mode.1 fuzz.1)

To succeed, event.1 must occur within fuzz.1 seconds of time.1, with mode.1 indicating whether this time is absolute or relative (to the time at which this fact is posted). A Timed Monitor Act sets up a timer that expires at the given time, and PRS reacts appropriately to either the expiration of the timer or the occurrence of the event, posting facts to the database to note the success or failure of the temporal constraint. Because the above Acts are fact invoked, these mechanisms enable the establishment of separate intentions to perform timing, without blocking other processing. This modularization enables triggers to be set up to independently respond to timing results.