A qualitative modelling environment for design & diagnosis of automation
D. Pearce, E. Grant · 1989
This paper describes a qualitative modelling toolbox for designing and developing application independent architectures.Developed out of a remote monitoring application, the toolbox uses object-oriented software and encapsulates knowledge-based information from a human expert to construct the model. Being object-oriented there is full inheritance between individual objects. It was considered feasible that the original work could be the basis of a design tool for automation architectures.Currently, application specific, hierarchically ordered architectures for automation are a barrier to progress. The present monolithic layering of such architectures means fault detection and monitoring remain the domain of the human expert. Here, we can produce the qualitative model in the form of an interactive user interface that can be used in fault monitoring and diagnosis and report faults. This modular, evolvable approach to designing architectures should aid in the reduction of their complexity particularly at the design stage.