A multifunctional knowledge-based system for engineering

摘要

Knowledge-based systems are normally designed to perform a single task (e.g. diagnosis) for which they are competent, but their knowledge base is rarely used for other tasks, even when they are very similar and in the same application domain. An alternative approach is to build a knowledge core that has the basic knowledge for a certain domain, on top of which different tasks could be built. In this paper, a multifunctional knowledge-based system for engineering domains, called MF-KBS, is described. MF-KBS has (i) a library of engineering components, such as pumps, valves, tanks, etc. associated with mathematical models at different abstraction levels, (ii) several reasoning mechanisms for these models, and (iii) knowledge operators capable of performing different tasks with the reasoning mechanisms, such as diagnosis, problem solving, tutoring, etc. Particular applications are built by joining components, producing a global model via composition, and selecting one or more of the knowledge operators. Experiments in a subsystem of an electric power plant with different knowledge operators are described.