The Expert System in Ship Automation

The application of conventional computer software in marine engineering is limited to the monitoring, data processing, and performance analysis. Due to the rapid progress of the artficial intelligence (AI), and the powerful capability of un-conventional computer software, expert system plays an important role in fault diagnosis, problem solving, troubleshooting, decision making, planning, and computer aided operation. All those expert system applications contribute to a meta-expert system. The integration of the meta-expert system and conventional computer software system is the corner stone toward the man zero (MO) fully computerized automation. The technique, the feasibility, the justification, the methodology, the configuration, the network protocol, and the integration of the different computer software systems are addressed.