A Mission Executor for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

The Naval Postgraduate School has been conducting research into the design and testing of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). One facet of this research is to incrementally design a software architecture and implement it in an advanced testbed, the AW 11. As part of the high level architecture, a Mission Executor is being constructed using CLIPS version 5.0. The Mission Executor is an expert system designed to oversee progress from the AW launch point to a goal area and back to the origin. It is expected that the Executor will make informed decisions about the mission, taking into account the navigational path, the vehicle subsystems health and the sea environment, as well as the specific mission profile which is downloaded from an offboard mission planner. Heuristics for maneuvering, avoidance of uncharted obstacles, waypoint navigation, and reaction to emergencies (essentially the expert knowledge of a submarine captain) are required. Many of the vehicle subsystems are modeled as objects using the CLIPS Object Oriented Language (COOL) embedded in CLIPS 5.0. Additionally, truth maintenance is applied to the knowledge base to keep configurations updated.Naval Postgraduate Schoo

CLIPS: The C language integrated production system

Expert systems are computer programs which emulate human expertise in well defined problem domains. The potential payoff from expert systems is high: valuable expertise can be captured and preserved, repetitive and/or mundane tasks requiring human expertise can be automated, and uniformity can be applied in decision making processes. The C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) is an expert system building tool, developed at the Johnson Space Center, which provides a complete environment for the development and delivery of rule and/or object based expert systems. CLIPS was specifically designed to provide a low cost option for developing and deploying expert system applications across a wide range of hardware platforms. The commercial potential of CLIPS is vast. Currently, CLIPS is being used by over 5,000 individuals throughout the public and private sector. Because the CLIPS source code is readily available, numerous groups have used CLIPS as the basis for their own expert system tools. To date, three commercially available tools have been derived from CLIPS. In general, the development of CLIPS has helped to improve the ability to deliver expert system technology throughout the public and private sectors for a wide range of applications and diverse computing environments

Equational and Rule-Based Programming: Visualization, Reliability, and Knowledge Base Generation

This document describes developing an environment for effective use of functional/equational programs and rule-based expert systems. There are significant advantages in using these paradigms for reliability, parallelism, and accumulation of expertise in knowledge bases. The environment will make it easier to understand and use these paradigms, construct more reliable systems, and automatically enrich rule-based knowledge bases with the expertise. It will consist of the following components: (1) Visualization: for composing systems using a graphical interface and for understanding of algorithms. (2) Consistency Checking: for an equational and a rule-based language in accordance with the semantics of the languages. (3) Knowledge Base Generation and Testing: a translator that extracts expertise from existing programs and accumulates it as rules in knowledge bases; the rules are tested to enhance reliability. (4) Verification: interactive heterogeneous reasoning that consists of equational reasoning based on visual and textual information. These tools will be integrated in the proposed environment. The environment will greatly reduce the costs and increase the reliability of functional/equational and rule-based systems

Second CLIPS Conference Proceedings, volume 1

Topics covered at the 2nd CLIPS Conference held at the Johnson Space Center, September 23-25, 1991 are given. Topics include rule groupings, fault detection using expert systems, decision making using expert systems, knowledge representation, computer aided design and debugging expert systems

Design of an Intelligent Tutoring System shell

Computer technology has brought about numerous changes in the availability of educational media, especially the Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Since the development of an ITS is such an interdisciplinary task, the instructor needs assistance in developing these educational aides. An ITS shell, or authoring system, is the tool that will enable ITSs to make the transition from the research arena and into the educational environment. The conceptual model of the ITS shell proposed in this thesis uses a layered approach to accessing the different modules of the ITS. The components, or subcomponents, of each module consist of either existing programs, or are selectable options developed by area experts. These options should allow the instructor to develop an ITS concentrating on the material being presented and on the method of interaction the student has with that material. The emphasis on the construction of these components is portability, modularity, and flexibility. The C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) is used as the inferencing and control mechanism. The design methodology proposed is the Object Oriented Programming approach. The emphasis of this thesis is on interface tools and presentation systems that allow for linking and integration into the ITS shell proposed.http://archive.org/details/designofintellig00scurCaptain, United States ArmyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Propagation of uncertainty in a knowledge-based system to assess energy management strategies for new technologies

The goal of this project is to investigate the propagation of uncertainty in a knowledge-based system that assesses energy management strategies for new gas and electric technologies that can help reduce energy consumption and demand. The new technologies that have been investigated include lighting, electric heat pumps, motors, refrigerators, microwave clothes dryers, freeze concentration, electric vehicles, gas furnaces, gas heat pumps, engine-driven chillers, absorption chillers, and natural gas vehicles distributed throughout the residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation sectors;The description of a complex assessment system may be simplified by allowing some degree of uncertainty. A number of uncertainty-representing mechanisms, such as probability theory, certainty factors, Dempster-Shafer theory, fuzzy logic, rough sets, non-numerical methods, and belief networks, were reviewed and compared. The proper application of uncertainty provides an effective and efficient way to represent knowledge;A knowledge-based system has been developed to assess the impacts of rebate programs on customer adoption of new technologies and, hence, the reductions in energy and demand. Three modes have been programmed: (1) one in which uncertainty is not considered, (2) another where fuzzy logic with linguistic variables is used to represent uncertainty, and (3) one in which uncertainty is represented using Dempster-Shafer theory with basic probability assignments. A correlation for rebate, expected (energy) savings, and customer adoption is employed in the knowledge base. Predictions for annual adoption of a new technology are made for specified useful life, rebate, and expected savings; or a suggested rebate can be determined for specified useful life, expected savings, and annual adoption. With input for energy use and demand for each technology, the impacts of rebate programs on energy use and power demand can be evaluated;This report and the knowledge-based system should help utilities determine these new technologies that are most promising and these strategies that should be emphasized in their energy management programs

A methodology for the selection of overall strategic performance measure for manufacturing business

This research has identified the performance measures congruent with each model during a business life cycle. Questionnaire surveys have also been carried out to complement and validate the theoretical models. The results of the survey generally confirm the expected measures derived from the theoretical models. The learning process for these newer industrial business organisations can be greatly reduced if the expertise and experience of the established manufacturing business organisations is made readily available. This is the motivation for this research and the methodology which has been developed. The research also proposes use of a knowledge based expert decision support system to encapsulate the methodology, and the wealth of expert knowledge in the domain of performance measures. A prototype knowledge based expert decision support system has been developed to test the concept. It is hoped that this research has achieved its aim to provide a new contribution in the manufacturing business organisation strategy domain and to the improvement of managerial productivity and effectiveness through better use of performance measures

Intelligent Management of Virtualised Computer Based Workloads and Systems

Managing the complexity within virtualised IT infrastructure platforms is a common problem for many organisations today. Computer systems are often highly consolidated into a relatively small physical footprint compared with previous decades prior to late 2000s, so much thought, planning and control is necessary to effectively operate such systems within the enterprise computing space. With the development of private, hybrid and public cloud utility computing this has become even more relevant; this work examines how such cloud systems are using virtualisation technology and embedded software to leverage advantages, and it uses a fresh approach of developing and creating an Intelligent decision engine (expert system). Its aim is to help reduce the complexity of managing virtualised computer-based platforms, through tight integration, high-levels of automation to minimise human inputs, errors, and enforce standards and consistency, in order to achieve better management and control. The thesis investigates whether an expert system known as the Intelligent Decision Engine (IDE) could aid the management of virtualised computer-based platforms. Through conducting a series of mixed quantitative and qualitative experiments in the areas of research, the initial findings and evaluation are presented in detail, using repeatable and observable processes and provide detailed analysis on the recorded outputs. The results of the investigation establish the advantages of using the IDE (expert system) to achieve the goal of reducing the complexity of managing virtualised computer-based platforms. In each detailed area examined, it is demonstrated how using a global management approach in combination with VM provisioning, migration, failover, and system resource controls can create a powerful autonomous system