An Ontological Framework for Autonomous Systems Modelling

Conceptual modelling aims at identifying, and characterising the entities and the relationships of a selected phenomenon in some domain. The obtained conceptual models express the meaning of the concepts used by domain experts, and the relationships between them. An ontology is a formal specification of a common conceptualisation shared by stakeholders and experts in a domain. Ontologies can serve as the semantic support for conceptual modelling, guiding and constraining the intended meaning of the conceptual models. We have followed this approach in our model-based control systems, by developing a domain ontology and an ontologybased methodology to support the conceptual modelling of autonomous systems. The ontology for autonomous systems captures the ontological elements to describe an autonomous system’s structure, function, and behaviour. The methodology exploits the ontology to generate the conceptual models for a generic engineering process. Both elements have been used in case studies to obtain conclusions on the suitability of the developed ontology and its application in the model-based engineering of autonomous systems. Keywords-ontology-based engineering; autonomous systems; ontology-driven conceptual modelling.

[1]  Umeshwar Dayal,et al.  Multi-Agent Cooperative Transactions for E-Commerce , 2000, CoopIS.

[2]  Andreia Malucelli,et al.  Combining ontologies and agents to help in solving the heterogeneity problem in e-commerce negotiations , 2005, International Workshop on Data Engineering Issues in E-Commerce.

[3]  Julita Bermejo-Alonso,et al.  Systems, models and self-awareness: Towards architectural models of consciousness , 2009 .

[4]  Thomas R. Gruber,et al.  Toward principles for the design of ontologies used for knowledge sharing? , 1995, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[5]  Babis Theodoulidis,et al.  Building autonomic computing systems based on ontological component models and a controller synthesis algorithm , 2003, 14th International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications, 2003. Proceedings..

[6]  Carlos Hernández,et al.  The Epistemic Control Loop , 2010 .

[7]  Dieter Fensel,et al.  Knowledge Engineering: Principles and Methods , 1998, Data Knowl. Eng..

[8]  Balakrishnan Chandrasekaran,et al.  What are ontologies, and why do we need them? , 1999, IEEE Intell. Syst..

[9]  Valentina A. M. Tamma.  An ontology model supporting multiple ontologies for knowledge sharing , 2001 .

[10]  Michael Cebulla.  Knowledge-based assessment of behavior in dynamic environments , 2005, KRAS '05.

[11]  M. Uschold,et al.  Observations on the Use of Ontologies for Autonomous Vehicle Navigation Planning , 2004 .

[12]  Rene V. Mayorga,et al.  Toward Artificial Sapience: Principles and Methods for Wise Systems , 2007 .

[13]  Asunción Gómez-Pérez,et al.  METHONTOLOGY: From Ontological Art Towards Ontological Engineering , 1997, AAAI 1997.

[14]  James S. Albus,et al.  How task analysis can be used to derive and organize the knowledge for the control of autonomous vehicles , 2004, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[15]  Julita Bermejo-Alonso,et al.  Ontology-Based Engineering of Autonomous Systems , 2010, 2010 Sixth International Conference on Autonomic and Autonomous Systems.

[16]  Ricardo Sanz,et al.  Progressive domain focalization in intelligent control systems , 1998 .

[17]  Jerry Fowler,et al.  On the Impact of Ontological Commitment , 2005 .

[18]  Ubbo Visser,et al.  Egocentric qualitative spatial knowledge representation for physical robots , 2004, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[19]  Stephen Balakirsky,et al.  self awareness in the mobility open architecture simulation and tools framework , 2005, KRAS '05.

[20]  Susan L. Epstein.  Metaknowledge for Autonomous Systems , 2004 .

[21]  Julita Bermejo Alonso.  Oasys: ontology for autonomous systems , 2010 .

[22]  Dejing Dou,et al.  Ontology translation by ontology merging and automated reasoning , 2004 .

[23]  Sharon Wood,et al.  Representation and purposeful autonomous agents , 2004, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[24]  M. Uschold,et al.  Ontologies for World Modeling in Autonomous Vehicles , 2022 .

[25]  Michael Uschold,et al.  Using ontologies to aid navigation planning in autonomous vehicles , 2003, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[26]  Janusz Zalewski,et al.  Pattern-based control systems engineering , 2003 .

[27]  J. Bradshaw,et al.  An Ontology-Based Representation for Policy-Governed Adjustable Autonomy , 2004 .

[28]  Rudi Studer,et al.  Ontology-based correlation engines , 2004 .

[29]  Stephen Balakirsky,et al.  Knowledge Representation for On-Road Driving , 2004, AAAI 2004.

[30]  Andreas Abecker,et al.  The role of ontologies in autonomic computing systems , 2004, IBM Syst. J..

[31]  Nazim Agoulmine,et al.  FOCALE: A Novel Autonomic Networking Architecture , 2006 .

[32]  Mehdi Dastani,et al.  Toward Artificial Sapience, Principles and Methods for Wise Systems , 2008 .

[33]  Carlos Hernández,et al.  Self-Awareness in Real-Time Cognitive Control Architectures , 2007, AAAI Fall Symposium: AI and Consciousness.

[34]  Peter Sommerlad,et al.  Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture , 1996 .