Experiences with building a knowledge system : an application in industrial control

Date
1988
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
SAIIE
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Centre for Robotics at the University of Stellenbosch set itself the objective of building a fairly complex manufacturing cell, including an unskilled human as a system component. As a precursor to this effort we constucted a simple cell requiring both supervision of a robot and supervision of a human using a Micro-Prolog knowledge system to do so. This was successfully done but at the cost of low execution speed and difficulty in integrating machine code instructions for machine control interfacing with the largely consultation orientated software which rendered the approach unsuitable for the more complex cell. MiCroExpert was used for this new effort but we also tried Turbo-Prolog to mimick the inference engine of the former software. This experience made us decide to trade the higher speed achieved by Turbo-Prolog for the much more rapid knowledge base development in MicroExpert. To do so it was necessary to bulld a special frame data structure and to enhance Micro-Expert for supervising such manufacturing cells.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die Sentrum vir Robotika aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch is die taak gestel om 'n komplekse vervaardigingsel to bou wat 'n ongeskoolde mens as stelselkomponent sou moes insluit As voorloper vir hierdie poging het ons eers 'n eenvoudige sel daargestel waarby toesig oor sleg 'n robot en 'n mens nodig was deur middel van 'n kennisstelsel gegrond op Micro-Prolog. Oit was suksesvol maar ten koste van betreklike lae uitvoerspoed en omslagtige instruksies in masjienkode vir die toesig oor die robot se werking, met die programmatuur was eintlik toegespits is op diagnose en konsultasie. Terwyl hierdie poging geslaagd was was dit duideltk dat die benadering nie so suksesvol op die beplande komplekse seI sou wees nie. Daarom is MicroExpert aangewend vir die finale sel waarby OTIS verder Turbo-Prolog gebruik het om die inferensie-enjin van Micro-Prolog na te boots. Hierdie ervaring het gelei tot die besluit om die huidige hoër spoed van Turbo-Prolog in te boet vir die gemak waarmee die ontwikkeling van kennisstelsels in Micro-Expert gedoen kan word. Die gebruik van MicroExpert vIr die besondere toepassing het ons egter genoodsaak om 'n spesiale raam datastruktuur daar te stel en om MircoExpert verder uit te bou.
Description
CITATION: Greef, A. R. & Reinecke, R. 1988. Experiences with building a knowledge system : an application in industrial control. South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2(2):15-24, doi:10.7166/2-2-445.
The original publication is available at http://sajie.journals.ac.za/pub
Keywords
micro-PROLOG (Computer program language), MicroExpert, Turbo languages (Computer program language)
Citation
Greef, A. R. & Reinecke, R. 1988. Experiences with building a knowledge system : an application in industrial control. South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2(2):15-24, doi:10.7166/2-2-445