Towards the application of artificial intelligence techniques for discrete event simulation

The possibility of incorporating Artificial Intelligence (A.I) techniques into Visual Interactive Discrete Event Simulation was examined. After a study the current state of the art, work was undertaken to investigate the usefulness of PROLOG as a simulation language. This led to the development of a working Simulation Engine, allowing simulations to be developed quickly. The way PROLOG facilitated development of the engine indicated a possible usefulness as a medium for controlling external simulations. Tests on the feasibility of this were made resulting in the development of an assembler link which allows PROLOG to remotely communicate with and control procedural language programs resident on a separate microcomputer. Experiments using this link were then made to test the application of A.I. techniques to current visual simulations. Studies were carried out on the controlling of the simulation, the monitoring and learning from a simulation, the use of simulation as a window to expert system performance, and on the manipulation of the simulation. This study represents a practical attempt to understand and develop the possible uses of A.I. techniques within visual interactive simulation. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the advantages attainable through such a merger of techniques, followed by areas in which the research may be expanded

Enhancing discrete event modelling by interfacing expert systems and simulation models.

This thesis investigates the representation of operational decision makers within simulation modelling. Artificial Intelligence concepts, such as expert systems focus on the problem of representing, in high-level code, complex real-world decision making problems. The author therefore proposes that the use of expert system technology may provide an improved means of representing operational decision tasks and that as a consequence, apriori possibilities may exist in the context of model experimentation based on alternative operational policies. The thesis further investigates the nature of operational decision making and the potential need to represent within a model, inter-dependencies between decision makers. A prototype system called ESSIM is developed which comprises of two interlinked components, a discrete event simulation module and expert system module. The benefits of the proposed approach are then assessed by comparing the functionally of ESSIM with conventional modelling techniques. The comparison is carried out by developing three alternative models of an automated container port, one of these using ESSIM. Experiments were then devised and executed which seek to draw conclusions on the thesis proposal