To gain a clear understanding of the issues, it will once again be helpful to consider discrete problems. The discussion here is a continuation of Section 12.2.1. In that section, the state represented a position, , and a direction, . Now suppose that the state is represented as , in which represents the particular environment that contains the robot. This will require defining a space of environments, which is rarely represented explicitly. It is often expressed as a constraint on the types of environments that can exist. For example, the set of environments could be defined as all connected 2D grid-planning problems. The set of simply connected grid-planning problems is even further constrained.
One question immediately arises: When are two maps of an environment equivalent? Recall the maps shown in Figures 12.2a and 12.3b. The map in Figure 12.3b appears the same for every 90-degree rotation; however, the map in Figure 12.2a appears to be different. Even if it appears different, it should still be the same environment, right? Imagine mapping a remote island without having a compass that indicates the direction to the north pole. An orientation (which way is up?) for the map can be chosen arbitrarily without any harm. If a map of the environment is made by ``drawing'' on , it should seem that two maps are equivalent if a transformation in (i.e., translation and rotation) can be applied to overlay one perfectly on top of the other.
When defining an environment space, it is important to clearly define what it means for two environments to be equivalent. For example, if we are required to build a map by exploration, is it required to also provide the exact translation and orientation? This may or may not be required, but it is important to specify this in the problem description. Thus, we will allow any possibility: If the maps only differ by a transformation in , they may or may not be defined as equivalent, depending on the application.
To consider some examples, it will be convenient to define some finite or infinite sets of environments. Suppose that planning on a 2D grid is once again considered. In this section, assume that each grid point has integer coordinates , as defined in Section 2.1. Let denote a set of environments. Once again, there are four possible directions for the robot to face; let denote this set. The state space is
Examples will be given shortly, but first think about the kinds of problems that can be formulated:
The initial condition is , because any position, orientation, and environment are possible. Some nondeterministic I-states will now be determined. Let . From this sequence of actions, the sensor observations report that the robot has not yet changed its position. The orientation was changed to west, but this is not known to the robot (it does, however, know that it is now pointing in the opposite direction with respect to its initial orientation). What can now be inferred? The robot has discovered that it is on a tile that is bounded on three sides by obstacles. This means that and are ruled out as possible environments. In the remaining four environments, the robot deduces that it must be on one of the end tiles: 1) the upper left of , 2) the upper right of , 3) the bottom of , 4) the rightmost of , 5) the top of , 6) the lower left of , or 7) the upper left of . It can also make strong inferences regarding its orientation. It even knows that the action would cause it to move because all four directions cannot be blocked.
Apply . The robot should move two times, to arrive in the upper left of facing north. In this case, any of , , , or are still possible; however, it now knows that its position at stage could not have been in the upper left of . If the robot is in , it knows that it must be in the upper left, but it still does not know its orientation (it could be north or west). The robot could also be in the lower left or lower right of .
Now let , which moves the robot twice. At this point, and are ruled out, and the set of possible environments is (one orientation from is also ruled out). If is applied, then the sensor observation reports that the robot does not move. This rules out . Finally, the robot can deduce that it is in the upper right of facing south. It can also deduce that in its initial state it was in the lower left of facing east. Thus, all of the uncertainty has been eliminated through the construction of the nondeterministic I-states.
Now consider adding the environments shown in Figure 12.13 to the set and starting the problem over again. Environment is identical to , except that the origin is moved, and is identical to , except that it is rotated by degrees. In these two cases, there exist no inputs that enable the robot to distinguish between and or between and . It is reasonable to declare these environments to be pairwise equivalent. The only distinction between them is the way that the map is drawn.
If the robot executes the same action sequence as given previously,
then it will also not be able to distinguish from . It is
impossible for the robot to deduce whether there is a white tile
somewhere that is not reachable. A general environment space may
include such variations, and this will prevent the robot from knowing
the precise environment. However, this usually presents no additional
difficulty in solving a planning problem. Therefore, it might make
sense to declare and to be equivalent. The fact that
tasks can be achieved without knowing the precise environment is very
important. In a sense, the environment is observed at some
``resolution'' that is sufficient for solving a problem; further
details beyond that are unimportant. Since the robot can ignore
unnecessary details, cheaper and more reliable systems can often be
built.