Automated qualitative modeling of dynamic physical systems
Jonathan Amsterdam · 1993
This report describes MM, a computer program that can model a variety of mechanical and fluid systems. It addresses several issues: What is the appropriate input to the modeling process? How should the search for models be organized? What evidence can be brought to bear to constrain the task? MM takes as input both a description of the structure of the system to be modeled and a trace of the system's behavior. The structure can be represented by 2D line drawings augmented with some additional information, or by component types and their interconnections, or both. The behavior trace provides the program with qualitative information about the behavior that the user wishes to capture with a model. MM organizes its search for models using a generalized, energy-based modeling framework and represents its models using bond graphs, a notation optimized for that framework. The program searches the system structure for plausible locations of primitive elements, connects the elements together ...