Method for determining possible transitions of system states

A robotic system comprising an industrial robot having a plurality of agents with discrete agent states, and a robot controller configured to carry out a method for determining possible transitions of system states, including the steps of:

• defining a plurality of rules, each rule having a pre-condition of at least one agent state that is to be changed, a post-condition of the at least one agent state, and an action or actions resulting in a corresponding transition of the at least one agent state;
• defining a plurality of nodes, each node having a system state expressed as a combination of the discrete agent states of the plurality of agents;
• for a plurality of pairs of nodes, whereby one node of each pair acts as a pre- condition node and the other node of each pair acts as a post-condition node, evaluating whether the pair is directly connectable by an edge and fulfills the rules to determine a possible transition of system states, each edge including an action or actions required for a direct transition from the respective pre-condition system state to the respective post-condition system state;
• sending a signal based on the evaluation to the plurality of agents for driving the agents to perform the action or actions for carrying out a task.