Comparing Partial Order Planning and Task Reduction Planning: A preliminary report

Although task reduction (HTN) planning historically preceded partial order (PO) planning, and is understood to be more general than the latter, very little analysis has been done regarding its performance. Part of the reason for this has been the lack of systematic understanding of the functionalities provided by HTN planning over and above that of partial order planning. HTN planning has been characterized as everything from a panacea for the problems of partial order planners to a mere "efficiency hack" on partial order planning. In this paper I will extend a generalized algorithm for partial order planning, that I developed recent work, to cover HTN planning