Rigorous engineering practice and formal reasoning of deep domain knowledge: The basis of dependable knowledge based systems for process plant control

Knowledge based systems are often used to replace humans in solving problems for which only heuristic knowledge on the solution is available. However, there are also important application areas where nonheuristic knowledge is available e.g. in technical documents but where efficient use of the knowledge is impossible without the techniques provided by artificial intelligence. High dependability of these kinds of applications can be achieved if domain knowledge can be represented in a language providing both adequate representational constructs and the required level of formality. In addition, the language should be supported by powerful tools assisting in the verification process.

Knowledge Based Systems, despite the different technology employed, are still nothing more than a computer program. Unfortunately, quite a few people building knowledge based systems seem to ignore the many good programming practices that have evolved over the years for producing traditional computer programs. What we need is a framework for the modelling of the KBSs development.

In our work, it is claimed that these requirements can be met by utilizing and combining ideas from control engineering, software engineering and artificial intelligence.