An AI-Based Approach for the Integration of Multiple Sources of Knowledge to Aid Engineering Design

1988 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. K. Mayer ◽  
S. C.-Y. Lu

A model for integrating multiple sources of knowledge within engineering expert systems is presented. It allows possible conflicts between multiple knowledge sources to be logically resolved at run-time rather than during the knowledge acquisition stage. Unlike the traditional approach in which the knowledge engineer is responsible for resolving conflicting views, resolutions are dynamically accomplished by the knowledge sources themselves and/or by system users. The system user is included as a problem-solving colleague to select a proper strategy from those offered by different experts. Both qualitative and quantitative constraints are traced during problem solving and can be retracted if necessary. The model has been successfully implemented in an engineering design domain to demonstrate the basic ideas. This research is our first step in a long-term effort to develop a cooperative problem-solving paradigm for knowledge-based engineering systems.

Author(s):  
Chunlong Wu ◽  
Benjamin Ciavola ◽  
John Gershenson

Function-based design is the traditional approach in engineering design theory, proving useful and practical in many cases but showing limitations in others. Affordance-based design is an alternative approach that attempts to address some of function theory’s limitations by focusing attention on the interactions between systems. This paper compares function-based design with affordance-based design by examining their philosophies, tools, abilities, and suitability along a number of dimensions. We conclude that the approaches are compatible and suggest future work to realize their integration.


Author(s):  
Alexander Kott ◽  
Gerald Agin ◽  
Dave Fawcett

Abstract Configuration is a process of generating a definitive description of a product or an order that satisfies a set of specified requirements and known constraints. Knowledge-based technology is an enabling factor in automation of configuration tasks found in the business operation. In this paper, we describe a configuration technique that is well suited for configuring “decomposable” artifacts with reasonably well defined structure and constraints. This technique may be classified as a member of a general class of decompositional approaches to configuration. The domain knowledge is structured as a general model of the artifact, an and-or hierarchy of the artifact’s elements, features, and characteristics. The model includes constraints and local specialists which are attached to the elements of the and-or-tree. Given the specific configuration requirements, the problem solving engine searches for a solution, a subtree, that satisfies the requirements and the applicable constraints. We describe an application of this approach that performs configuration and design of an automotive component.


Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kody Ponds ◽  
Ali Arefi ◽  
Ali Sayigh ◽  
Gerard Ledwich

The world is progressing towards a more advanced society where end-consumers have access to local renewable-based generation and advanced forms of information and technology. Hence, it is in a current state of transition between the traditional approach to power generation and distribution, where end-consumers of electricity have typically been inactive in their involvement with energy markets and a new approach that integrates their active participation. This new approach includes the use of distributed energy resources (DER) such as renewable-based generation and demand response (DR), which are being rapidly adopted by end-consumers where incentives are strong. This paper presents the role of the DR aggregator to effectively integrate DER technology as a new source of energy capacity into electricity networks using information communication technology and industry knowledge., Based on DR aggregators, this framework will efficiently facilitate renewable energy integration and customer engagement into the electricity market. To this aim, advantages and disadvantages of DR aggregators are discussed in this paper from political, economic, social, and technological (PEST) points of view. Based on this analysis, a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis for a typical DR aggregator is presented.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 422-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas J. Hefty

Applying mathematics during engineering design challenges can help children develop critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills.


Author(s):  
B. Chandrasekaran

AbstractI was among those who proposed problem solving methods (PSMs) in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a knowledge-level description of strategies useful in building knowledge-based systems. This paper summarizes the evolution of my ideas in the last two decades. I start with a review of the original ideas. From an artificial intelligence (AI) point of view, it is not PSMs as such, which are essentially high-level design strategies for computation, that are interesting, but PSMs associated with tasks that have a relation to AI and cognition. They are also interesting with respect to cognitive architecture proposals such as Soar and ACT-R: PSMs are observed regularities in the use of knowledge that an exclusive focus on the architecture level might miss, the latter providing no vocabulary to talk about these regularities. PSMs in the original conception are closely connected to a specific view of knowledge: symbolic expressions represented in a repository and retrieved as needed. I join critics of this view, and maintain with them that most often knowledge is not retrieved from a base as much as constructed as needed. This criticism, however, raises the question of what is in memory that is not knowledge as traditionally conceived in AI, but can support theconstructionof knowledge in predicate–symbolic form. My recent proposal about cognition and multimodality offers a possible answer. In this view, much of memory consists of perceptual and kinesthetic images, which can be recalled during deliberation and from which internal perception can generate linguistic–symbolic knowledge. For example, from a mental image of a configuration of objects, numerous sentences can be constructed describing spatial relations between the objects. My work on diagrammatic reasoning is an implemented example of how this might work. These internal perceptions on imagistic representations are a new kind of PSM.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Allen ◽  
Richard Crawford ◽  
Leema Berland ◽  
Karen High ◽  
Anthony Petrosino ◽  
...  

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