ISR research accomplishments

Bridge Baron

Bridge Baron is a computer program that plays bridge. It won the 1997 world championship of computer bridge, which was reported in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Research team

Dana Nau (CS/ISR) Stephen Smith (U of Maryland Ph.D. graduate; now at Great Game Products) Thomas Throop (Great Game Products)

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Accomplishment

The research team developed an advanced AI planning technique for generating and evaluating bridge-playing strategies. We incorporated this technique into an existing commercial product, Bridge Baron. This technique helped Bridge Baron win the 1997 championship. A generalization of the technique is useful in problems as diverse as manufacturing planning and emergency evacuation planning.

Impact: Applications to manufacturing planning

EDAPS: Electro-Mechanical Design and Planning System

Design and manufacturability analysis for microwave T/R modules. Same techniques as in Bridge Baron; even some of the same code! Led to two follow-up contracts with Northrop Grumman. NIST has used part of the work in their Process Specification Language project. EDAPS and Bridge Baron required extensions to the theory of AI planning. Domain-independent formalization of those extensions.

SHOP: Simple Hierarchical Ordered Planner

Sound and complete over a large class of planning problems. High degree of expressivity. Can represent and solve complex planning problems that most domain-independent planning systems can’t handle. Implementation available via FTP; downloaded by several dozen researchers. Solves standard benchmarkproblems orders of magnitude fasterthan other domain-independentplanning systems.

HICAP: Non-Combatant Evacuation Planning

Joint ongoing work with Naval Research Laboratory. Integrates the SHOP planning system with case-based reasoning. Makes appropriate use of military doctrine. Retrieves and adapts portions of previous successful plans

For more information

Dana Nau's Bridge Baron web site

Great Game Products

SHOP Download SHOP and view a list of publications

HICAP: Munoz et al., ICCBR-99; Munoz et al., IAAI-99

Related ISR Technical Reports: | TR 96-78 | TR 95-71 | TR 93-56 | TR 93-57 |