A Second Generation Expert System for Control Design

Abstract In this paper, we present the system SECOA (Systeme d'Exploitation des COnnaissances en Automatique) which is the result of a collaborative project of Electricite De France (EDF), and the Laboratoire d'Automatique et Productique at the Universite Bordeaux-I. The aim of the project SECOA is to produce a generic knowledge base in control theory. The first application of this base is the problem of control design for industrial processes: Given a process to be controlled and specifications about behavior of the controlled system, SECOA designs a control law meeting the desired requirements. SECOA has been developed through the application of appropriate knowledge-based system construction methodology MOISE (Methode Organisee pour l'Ingenierie des Systemes Experts). Therefore, the problem of modelling and representing knowledge is tackled. A generic model for this has been constructed which enabled us to build a flexible, evolutive, and maintainable knowledge base.