An Expert System Architecture for Coping with Complexity in Computer-Aided Control Engineering

Abstract We discuss an architecture for an expert system to assist a control engineer in coping with the complexity of computer-aided control engineering, with major emphasis placed on implementation. Issues to be treated include: rule base organization, knowledge to be contained in various rule bases, a mechanism to switch between rule bases as the problem solution proceeds, a protocol to coordinate the symbolic computations of the inference engine with the numeric computations of conventional analysis and design software, support of non-monotonic reasoning to permit retracting and revising steps in the design process, and conversion between numeric and symbolic data. We present our approach to these issues, and give examples of rules used to represent operational knowledge and to guide the solution of the problem.