Exploiting application parallelism in knowledge-based systems: an experimental method
Jakub Daniel, M.R. Moulding · Concurrency Practice and Experience · 1996
A method is presented which aims to enhance the run-time performance of real-time production systems of utilising natural concurrency in the application knowledge base. This exploiting application parallelism (EAP) method includes an automated analysis of the knowledge base and the use of this analysis information to partition and execute rules on a novel parallel production system (PPS) architecture. Prototype analysis tools and a PPS simulator have been developed for the Inference ART environment in order to apply the method to a naval data-fusion problem. The results of this experimental investigation revealed that an average maximum of 12.06 rule-firings/cycle was possible but, due to serial bottlenecks inherent in the data-fusion problem, up to only 2.14 rule-firings/cycle was achieved overall. Limitations of the EAP method are discussed within the context of the experimental results and an enhanced method is investigated.