Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications

Proceedings of a conference held in Huntsville, Alabama, on November 15-16, 1988. The Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications brings together diverse technical and scientific work in order to help those who employ AI methods in space applications to identify common goals and to address issues of general interest in the AI community. Topics include the following: space applications of expert systems in fault diagnostics, in telemetry monitoring and data collection, in design and systems integration; and in planning and scheduling; knowledge representation, capture, verification, and management; robotics and vision; adaptive learning; and automatic programming

Context-aware multiagent system: Planning home care tasks

Context-aware systems are able to capture information from the context in which they are executed, assign a meaning to the gathered information, and change their behavior accordingly. As a result, the systems can offer services to users according to their individual situation within the context. This article analyzes the important aspects of context-aware computing such as capturing information for context attributes and determining the manner of interacting with users in the environment. Used in conjunction with mobile devices, context-aware systems are specifically used to improve the usability of applications and services. This article proposes the home care context-aware computing (HoCCAC) multiagent system that identifies and maintains a permanent fix on the location of patients in their home, and manages the infrastructure of services within their environment securely and reliably by processing and reasoning the data received. Based on the multiagent system, a prototype was developed to monitor patients in their home. The HoCCAC multiagent system uses a critical path method-based planning model that, in the present study, prepares the most optimal task-planning schedule for the patients in their home, is capable of reacting automatically when faced with dangerous or emergency situations, replanning any plans in progress and sending alert messages to the system. The results obtained with this prototype are presented in this article

Self Monitoring Goal Driven Autonomy Agents

The growing abundance of autonomous systems is driving the need for robust performance. Most current systems are not fully autonomous and often fail when placed in real environments. Via self-monitoring, agents can identify when their own, or externally given, boundaries are violated, thereby increasing their performance and reliability. Specifically, self-monitoring is the identification of unexpected situations that either (1) prohibit the agent from reaching its goal(s) or (2) result in the agent acting outside of its boundaries. Increasingly complex and open environments warrant the use of such robust autonomy (e.g., self-driving cars, delivery drones, and all types of future digital and physical assistants). The techniques presented herein advance the current state of the art in self-monitoring, demonstrating improved performance in a variety of challenging domains. In the aforementioned domains, there is an inability to plan for all possible situations. In many cases all aspects of a domain are not known beforehand, and, even if they were, the cost of encoding them is high. Self-monitoring agents are able to identify and then respond to previously unexpected situations, or never-before-encountered situations. When dealing with unknown situations, one must start with what is expected behavior and use that to derive unexpected behavior. The representation of expectations will vary among domains; in a real-time strategy game like Starcraft, it could be logically inferred concepts; in a mars rover domain, it could be an accumulation of actions\u27 effects. Nonetheless, explicit expectations are necessary to identify the unexpected. This thesis lays the foundation for self-monitoring in goal driven autonomy agents in both rich and expressive domains and in partially observable domains. We introduce multiple techniques for handling such environments. We show how inferred expectations are needed to enable high level planning in real-time strategy games. We show how a hierarchical structure of Goal-driven Autonomy (GDA) enables agents to operate within large state spaces. Within Hierarchical Task Network planning, we show how informed expectations identify states that are likely to prevent an agent from reaching its goals in dynamic domains. Finally, we give a model of expectations for self-monitoring at the meta-cognitive level, and empirical results of agents equipped with and without metacognitive expectations

Integrating conversational case retrieval with generative planning

Advances in Case-Based Reasoning Research and Development: Proceedings of the 5th European Workshop on Case-Based Reasoning, EWCBR 2000, pp. 210-221.Some problem-solving tasks are amenable to integrated case retrieval and generative planning techniques. This is certainly true for some decision support tasks, in which a user controls the problem-solving process but cannot provide a complete domain theory. Unfortunately, existing integrations are either non-interactive or require a complete domain theory and/or complete world state to produce acceptable plans preventing them from being easily used in these situations. We describe a novel integrated algorithm, named SiN, that is interactive and does not require a complete domain theory or complete world state. SiN users leverage a conversational case retriever to focus both partial world state acquisition and plan generation. We highlight the benefits of SiN (e.g. quadratically fewer cases needed) in an experimental study using a new travel planning domain

Emerging Informatics

The book on emerging informatics brings together the new concepts and applications that will help define and outline problem solving methods and features in designing business and human systems. It covers international aspects of information systems design in which many relevant technologies are introduced for the welfare of human and business systems. This initiative can be viewed as an emergent area of informatics that helps better conceptualise and design new world-class solutions. The book provides four flexible sections that accommodate total of fourteen chapters. The section specifies learning contexts in emerging fields. Each chapter presents a clear basis through the problem conception and its applicable technological solutions. I hope this will help further exploration of knowledge in the informatics discipline

Application of artificial intelligence techniques to the smart control of sheet metal forming processes

The present research work aims at evaluating the economical feasibility and the technological viability of implementing intelligent control systems in complex industrial manufacturing processes; in this case forming processes. Forming processes are manufacturing processes that use force and pressure in order to modify the shape of a material part until getting the final product. The wide range of non-linear factors (material properties, tool geometry, machine parameters and lubrication variables) that determine the final quality of the parts manufactured by these processes makes them to be inherently quite unstable. Thus, the control made by human operators is still essential nowadays. On the other hand, although human operators have demonstrated to be a very successful strategy when controlling this type of processes, the actual market evolution towards the fabrication of more complex parts, made of lower formability materials at higher production rates is decreasing their capacity of reaction when solving the daily problems. Therefore, the development of new automatic and global control systems based, not on traditional control techniques and mathematical models but on the control strategy that has been successfully used for many years, the control through the experience and knowledge, is now even more necessary. In the present research work, two intelligent control systems based on AI techniques have been developed and evaluated. The main purpose of these intelligent control systems is to identify the process failures at forming processes and to propose the right solutions that should lead to their solution, all this in a quick and reliable way. Following this strategy, the solution of the process failures is considerably simplified because, after any process failure of defective part detection, human operators find a report where an explanation of the incidence, as well as its causes and the way to solve it, are displayed. This has the inherent advantage of decreasing the length of the downtimes at the manufacturing facilities and thus increasing the number of parts produced. Together with the previously described core of the global control systems, two monitoring systems have been developed and implemented in a forming facility too. The purpose of these monitoring systems is to work as the senses of the intelligent control systems. The first one, an artificial vision system, is aimed at evaluating the quality of the produced parts by carrying out a 100% quality control at the end of the forming process. This will assure the right quality of all the products shipped to the customer. The second one, a sensors based process monitoring system, is aimed at detecting any process failure at the forming facility by means of force and acoustic emissions measurements. This will reduce the internal defective and will assure the security of the forming facility. Both systems are in charge of detecting any process failure and defective part and of reporting about them to the intelligent control system. Since the aim of the research work was to evaluate the feasibility of implementing global intelligent control systems in the industry, all the developments and results achieved through the present research work have been carried out in an industrial environment. The research work is principally divided into three main parts; 1) the development and implementation of the sensors based process monitoring system, 2) the development and implementation of the AV monitoring system and 3) the development of the intelligent control systems. At the end, a summary of all the results and conclusions achieved through the development of the previous mentioned systems is given too.Ikerkuntza lan honen helburua sistema adimendunak fabrikazio prozesu konplexuak kontrolatzeko erabiltzearen bideragarritasuna aztertzea da, bai ekonomikoki eta teknologikoki. Kasu honetan, konformazio prozesuetan inplementatutako sistema adimenduak ikertu dira. Konformazio prozesuak, amaierako produktua lortzeko, hasierako materialari esfortzu edo presioen bidez forma geometrikoa aldatzean datzate. Konformaturiko piezen amaierako kalitatea finkatzen duten aldagai ez-linealen ugaritasun zabalak (materialen propietateak, lanabesen geometriak, makinen parametroak eta/edo lubrifikazioa) prozesu hauek ezegonkorrak izatea ondorioztatzen du. Hori dela medio, gaur egun ere, prozesu hauen kontrola giza-langile bidez egiten da. Langileak prozesu hauek modu eraginkorrean kontrolatzeko gai direla erakutsi du esperientziak. Dena den, deformagarritasun txikiagoko materialez eginiko pieza konplexuagoak kadentzia altuagoetan fabrikatzeko gaur egungo joerak, langileek ezustekoen aurrean erantzuteko duten gaitasuna gutxitu du. Ondorioz, prozesua gainbegiratu eta kontrolatzen duten sistema automatiko eta adimendu berrien garapena beharrezkoa bihurtu da. Sistema hauek ez daude kontrol teknika tradizional edo eredu matematikoetan oinarrituak. Sistema hauen kontrola ezagutza eta esperientzian oinarriturik dago, zeinak azken urteetan emaitza onak eman dituen. Ikerkuntza lan honetan adimen artifizial tekniketan oinarrituriko bi kontrol sistema adimendun garatu eta baloratu dira. Sistema hauen helburu nagusia konformazio prozesuetan emaniko akatsak identifikatu eta automatikoki ebazpenproposamenak aurkeztea da, modu azkar eta sendoan. Estrategia hau jarraituz, prozesuko akatsen ebazpena errazten da, pieza akastunak atzematean edo makinaren geldialdi baten aurrean, sistemak langilea eman beharreko pausuak azaltzen dizkion txosten batez hornituko baitu. Makinaren geldialdiaren murriztea eta ondorioz, produktibitatea igotzea da honen abantaila nagusia, akatsen identifikazioa berehalakoa baita. Kontrol sistema garatzeaz gain, puntzonaketa instalakuntza batean bi monitorizazio sistema martxan jarri dira. Bi monitorizazio sistema hauen helburua prozesuaren informazioa jaso eta kontrol sistemari bidaltzea da. Lehenengoa ikuspen artifizialeko sistema bat da, zeinaren helburua ekoiztutako piezen %100aren kalitatea aztertzea den. Honenbestez, bezeroei bidalitako piezen kalitate egokia bermatzen da. Bigarrena sentsoreetan oinarrituriko prozesuen monitorizazio sistema bat da. Bere helburua prozesuan emaniko edozein akats antzematea da. Honek akastun piezen kantitatea gutxitzen du eta instalakuntzak prozesuen ezegonkortasunetatik babesten ditu. Ondorioz, bi sistemen helburua prozesuan izandako arazo edo pieza akastunak antzematea eta kontrol sistemari hauen berri ematea da. Lan honen helburua aurrez aipaturiko sistemen gaitasuna industri ingurunean ebaluatzea denez, aurkezturiko garapen eta emaitzak enpresa batean burutu dira. Hiru atal nagusi bereiz daitezke lan honetan: 1) sentsoreetan oinarrituriko monitorizazio sistema baten garapen eta inplementazioa; 2) ikuskapen artifizialeko sistemaren garapen eta inplementazioa; eta 3) adimendun kontrolean oinarrituriko sistemen garapena.El presente trabajo de investigación tiene como objetivo evaluar en qué condiciones es económicamente viable y tecnológicamente factible la implementación de sistemas inteligentes de control en procesos de fabricación complejos; en este caso procesos de conformado. Los procesos de conformado son procesos de fabricación basados en la aplicación de esfuerzos o presiones sobre componentes con el objetivo de modificar su forma geométrica hasta conseguir un producto final. El gran abanico de variables no lineales (propiedades de materiales, geometría de herramientas, parámetros de máquinas y/o lubricación) que determinan la calidad final de las piezas conformadas hacen que estos procesos sean inherentemente inestables. Por ello, aun hoy en día, el control de estos procesos se realiza mediante operarios humanos. Por otro lado, aunque la experiencia ha demostrado que los operarios son capaces de controlar estos procesos de manera eficiente, la actual tendencia hacia la fabricación de piezas más complejas, fabricadas en materiales menos deformables y todo ello a cadencias de fabricación mayores, ha hecho que la capacidad de los operarios para reaccionar ante imprevistos se haya visto mermada. Por lo tanto, el desarrollo de nuevos sistemas automáticos e inteligentes de supervisión y control basados, no en técnicas tradicionales de control o en modelos matemáticos, sino en la estrategia de control que ha dado buenos resultados a lo largo de los años, el control basado en la experiencia y el conocimiento, es cada vez más necesario. En el presente trabajo de investigación, se han desarrollado y evaluado dos sistemas inteligentes de control basados en técnicas de inteligencia artificial. El principal objetivo de estos sistemas es ser capaces de identificar los fallos de proceso en procesos de conformado así como de plantear, automáticamente, las instrucciones para su resolución, todo ello de una manera rápida y robusta. Siguiendo esta estrategia, la resolución de los fallos de proceso se simplifica ya que, tras una parada de máquina o la detección de piezas defectuosas, el sistema proporciona al operario un informe donde se detallan las acciones a llevar a cabo. Esto tiene como ventaja una reducción en los tiempos de parada de máquina (y por lo tanto aumento en la cantidad de piezas producidas) ya que la identificación de los fallos es inmediata. Junto con el núcleo del sistema global de control, se han desarrollado e implementando en una instalación de corte progresivo dos sistemas de monitorización. El objetivo de estos dos sistemas de monitorización es recoger información sobre el proceso y enviársela al sistema de control. El primero, un sistema de visión artificial, tiene como objetivo analizar la calidad del 100% de las piezas fabricadas. Esto asegura la correcta calidad de todas las piezas enviadas a los clientes. El segundo, un sistema de monitorización de procesos basado en sensores, tiene como objetivo la detección de cualquier fallo de proceso. Esto reduce el defectivo interno y protege a las instalaciones frente a anomalías de proceso. Por lo tanto, ambos sistemas tienen como misión la detección de cualquier anomalía de proceso o pieza defectiva así como informar al sistema de control sobre las mismas. Puesto que el objetivo de este trabajo es evaluar la capacidad de los sistemas anteriormente citados en el entorno industrial, todos los desarrollos y resultados obtenidos a lo largo del mismo se han llevado a cabo en una empresa. El trabajo se puede dividir en tres partes: 1) el desarrollo e implementación del sistema de monitorización basado en sensores, 2) el desarrollo e implementación del sistema de visión artificial y 3) el desarrollo de los sistemas de control inteligentes

Case Retrieval Nets as a Model for Building Flexible Information Systems

Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird das Modell der Case Retrieval Netze vorgestellt, das ein Speichermodell für die Phase des Retrievals beim fallbasierten Schliessen darstellt. Dieses Modell lehnt sich an Assoziativspeicher an, insbesondere wird das Retrieval als Rekonstruktion des Falles betrachtet anstatt als eine Suche im traditionellen Sinne. Zwei der wesentlichen Vorteile des Modells sind Effizienz und Flexibilität: Effizienz beschreibt dabei die Fähigkeit, mit grossen Fallbasen umzugehen und dennoch schnell ein Resultat des Retrievals liefern zu können. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird dieser Aspekt formal untersucht, das Hauptaugenmerk ist aber eher pragmatisch motiviert insofern als der Retrieval-Prozess so schnell sein sollte, dass der Benutzer möglichst keine Wartezeiten in Kauf nehmen muss. Flexibilität betrifft andererseits die allgemeine Anwendbarkeit des Modells in Bezug auf veränderte Aufgabenstellungen, auf alternative Formen der Fallrepräsentation usw. Hierfür wird das Konzept der Informationsvervollständigung diskutiert, welches insbesondere für die Beschreibung von interaktiven Entscheidungsunterstützungssystemen geeignet ist. Traditionelle Problemlöseverfahren, wie etwa Klassifikation oder Diagnose, können als Spezialfälle von Informationsvervollständigung aufgefasst werden. Das formale Modell der Case Retrieval Netze wird im Detail erläutert und dessen Eigenschaften untersucht. Anschliessend werden einige möglich Erweiterungen beschrieben. Neben diesen theoretischen Aspekten bilden Anwendungen, die mit Hilfe des Case Retrieval Netz Modells erstellt wurden, einen weiteren Schwerpunkt. Diese lassen sich in zwei grosse Richtungen einordnen: intelligente Verkaufsunterstützung für Zwecke des E-Commerce sowie Wissensmanagement auf Basis textueller Dokumente, wobei für letzteres der Aspekt der Wiederbenutzung von Problemlösewissen essentiell ist. Für jedes dieser Gebiete wird eine Anwendung im Detail beschrieben, weitere dienen der Illustration und werden nur kurz erläutert. Zuvor wird allgemein beschrieben, welche Aspekte bei Entwurf und Implementierung eines Informationssystems zu beachten sind, welches das Modell der Case Retrieval Netze nutzt.In this thesis, a specific memory structure is presented that has been developed for the retrieval task in Case-Based Reasoning systems, namely Case Retrieval Nets (CRNs). This model borrows from associative memories in that it suggests to interpret case retrieval as a process of re-constructing a stored case rather than searching for it in the traditional sense. Tow major advantages of this model are efficiency and flexibility: Efficiency, on the one hand, is concerned with the ability to handle large case bases and still deliver retrieval results reasonably fast. In this thesis, a formal investigation of efficiency is included but the main focus is set on a more pragmatic view in the sense that retrieval should, in the ideal case, be fast enough such that for the users of a related system no delay will be noticeable. Flexibility, on the other hand, is related to the general applicability of a case memory depending on the type of task to perform, the representation of cases etc. For this, the concept of information completion is discussed which allows to capture the interactive nature of problem solving methods in particular when they are applied within a decision support system environment. As discussed, information completion, thus, covers more specific problem solving types, such as classification and diagnosis. The formal model of CRNs is presented in detail and its properties are investigated. After that, some possible extensions are described. Besides these more theoretical aspects, a further focus is set on applications that have been developed on the basis of the CRN model. Roughly speaking, two areas of applications can be recognized: electronic commerce applications for which Case-Based Reasoning may provide intelligent sales support, and knowledge management based on textual documents where the reuse of problem solving knowledge plays a crucial role. For each of these areas, a single application is described in full detail and further case studies are listed for illustration purposes. Prior to the details of the applications, a more general framework is presented describing the general design and implementation of an information system that makes uses of the model of CRNs

New platform for intelligent context-based distributed information fusion

Tesis por compendio de publicaciones[ES]Durante las últimas décadas, las redes de sensores se han vuelto cada vez más importantes y hoy en día están presentes en prácticamente todos los sectores de nuestra sociedad. Su gran capacidad para adquirir datos y actuar sobre el entorno, puede facilitar la construcción de sistemas sensibles al contexto, que permitan un análisis detallado y flexible de los procesos que ocurren y los servicios que se pueden proporcionar a los usuarios. Esta tesis doctoral se presenta en el formato de “Compendio de Artículos”, de tal forma que las principales características de la arquitectura multi-agente distribuida propuesta para facilitar la interconexión de redes de sensores se presentan en tres artículos bien diferenciados. Se ha planteado una arquitectura modular y ligera para dispositivos limitados computacionalmente, diseñando un mecanismo de comunicación flexible que permite la interacción entre diferentes agentes embebidos, desplegados en dispositivos de tamaño reducido. Se propone un nuevo modelo de agente embebido, como mecanismo de extensión para la plataforma PANGEA. Además, se diseña un nuevo modelo de organización virtual de agentes especializada en la fusión de información. De esta forma, los agentes inteligentes tienen en cuenta las características de las organizaciones existentes en el entorno a la hora de proporcionar servicios. El modelo de fusión de información presenta una arquitectura claramente diferenciada en 4 niveles, siendo capaz de obtener la información proporcionada por las redes de sensores (capas inferiores) para ser integrada con organizaciones virtuales de agentes (capas superiores). El filtrado de señales, minería de datos, sistemas de razonamiento basados en casos y otras técnicas de Inteligencia Artificial han sido aplicadas para la consecución exitosa de esta investigación. Una de las principales innovaciones que pretendo con mi estudio, es investigar acerca de nuevos mecanismos que permitan la adición dinámica de redes de sensores combinando diferentes tecnologías con el propósito final de exponer un conjunto de servicios de usuario de forma distribuida. En este sentido, se propondrá una arquitectura multiagente basada en organizaciones virtuales que gestione de forma autónoma la infraestructura subyacente constituida por el hardware y los diferentes sensores

Adaptive management of emerging battlefield network

The management of the battlefield network takes place in a Network Operations Center (NOC). The manager, based on the importance of the managed network, is sometimes required to be present all the time within the physical installations of the NOC. The decisions regard a wide spectrum of network configurations, fault detection and repair, and network performance improvement. Especially in the case of the battlefield network operations these decisions are sometimes so important that can be characterized as critical to the success of the whole military operation. Most of the times, the response time is so restricted that exceeds the mean physical human response limits. An automated response that also carries the characteristics of human intelligence is needed to overcome the restrictions the human nature of an administrator imposes. The research will establish the proper computer network management architecture for an adaptive network. This architecture will enhance the capabilities of network management and in terms of cost and efficiency.http://archive.org/details/adaptivemanageme109451678Lieutenant Commander, Hellenic NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited