A temporal logic for representing and reasoning
on a robotic domain is presented. Actions are represented
by describing what is true while the action itself is occurring,
and plans are constructed by temporally relating actions
and world states. The temporal language is a member of
the family of Description Logics, which are characterized
by high expressivity combined with good computational properties.
The logic is used to organize the domain actions and plans
in a taxonomy. The classification and recognition
tasks, together with the subsumption task form
the basis for action management. An action/plan description
can be automatically classified into a taxonomy;
an action/plan instance can be recognized to take
place at a certain moment from the observation of what
is happening in the world during a time interval.