47 research outputs found
Multi-Agent Cooperation for Particle Accelerator Control
We present practical investigations in a real industrial controls environment
for justifying theoretical DAI (Distributed Artificial Intelligence) results,
and we discuss theoretical aspects of practical investigations for
accelerator control and operation. A generalized hypothesis is introduced,
based on a unified view of control, monitoring, diagnosis, maintenance and
repair tasks leading to a general method of cooperation for expert systems
by exchanging hypotheses. This has been tested for task and result sharing
cooperation scenarios. Generalized hypotheses also allow us to treat the
repetitive diagnosis-recovery cycle as task sharing cooperation. Problems
with such a loop or even recursive calls between the different agents are
discussed
A Rule-Based Consultant for Accelerator Beam Scheduling Used in the CERN PS Complex
The CERN PS accelerator complex consists of nine interacting accelerators which work together to produce
particle beams for different end users, varying in particle type, energy, time structure, and geometry. The beam
production schedule is time sliced and depends on the current operational requirements and dynamically on the
accelerator status, so that production schedule changes occur in real time. Many potential schedules are not valid due
to various system constraints and these constraints vary over time as new operational modes are introduced. In order
to ensure that only valid schedules are given to the complex, an automated tool has been developed to indicate
whether a potential schedule is valid or not. This presentation describes the method by which the validity of a beam
schedule is determined and how this method was implemented using a rule-based approach based on SQL, avoiding
the use of an expert system shell. Both the data to instantiate the rules and the rules themselves are kept in an Oracle
data base. The SQL interpreter provides the inference engine for this knowledge-based system. A few examples are
presented and the running experience with the tool is discussed