Knowledge representation for real-time on-line industrial inspection systems

Abstract

Low cost, flexibility and deterministic response times are three major requirements of modern industry. To address these issues, industrially-relevant control systems must increasingly be made capable of adaptive and dynamic behaviour by being endowed with explicit knowledge and the ability to process this knowledge in a deterministic fashion. The question of representation of knowledge has thus become critical, as it is fundamental to knowledge management. In this paper, two essential points — knowledge acquisition and knowledge reasoning — both of which have a direct bearing on the issue of knowledge representation, will be examined. It will be shown how the combination of appropriate representation together with well-chosen acquisition and reasoning procedures, can lead to a flexible and industrially-relevant solution. To illustrate and justify these claims, the paper will conclude with an extensive set of experiments in on-line inspection.