Model-based verification of knowledge-based systems: A case study

Abstract

As knowledge-based systems become a standard in software development, the interest in verification and validation techniques to ensure their reliability has grown. For this purpose the verification of knowledge bases is fundamental. Numerous references in the literature involve verification by detection of implementation-dependent anomalies in the knowledge base such as inconsistency, incompleteness and redundancy. This approach has several limitations. The main one is the lack of significance of these anomalies in relation to the task of the system. To overcome this problem an approach that exploits the information on the organisation of the knowledge involved in the task, and of the utilisation of this knowledge for solving the task is proposed. This approach, referred to as model-based verification is described, and a case study on the verification of classical planning systems is presented.