Active Goal Recognition

Abstract The objective of goal recognition is to infer a goal that accounts for the observed behavior of an actor. In this work, we introduce and formalize the notion of active goal recognition in which we endow the observer with agency to sense, reason, and act in the world with a view to enhancing and possibly expediting goal recognition, and/or to intervening in goal achievement. To this end, we present an algorithm for active goal recognition and a landmark-based approach to the elimination of hypothesized goals which leverages automated planning. Experiments demonstrate the merits of providing agency to the observer, and the effectiveness of our approach in potentially enhancing the observational power of the observer, as well as expediting and in some cases making possible the recognition of the actor's goal.