HECODES: A Framework for Heterogeneous Cooperative Distributed Expert Systems

Abstract Cooperation between human experts is important when solving many complex problems and communication between the experts is essential for such cooperation. Cooperation between computerised expert systems is equally essential when dealing with complex problems. The software system described in this paper, HECODES (HEterogeneos COoperative Distributed Expert Systems), is a framework used to realize cooperation between distributed heterogeneous expert systems (ESs). HECODES consists of a centralized control system, a blackboard system, and front-end processors. All parts of HECODES are specified (and implemented) using knowledge-based programming techniques and so they are domain-independent. HECODES can integrate a variety of pre-existing ESs using a variety of kinds of cooperation. The ESs can be heterogeneous with respect to control strategy, knowledge representation, and programming language. A prototype has been implemented using Common Lisp on a network of DEC VAX machines some of which are 60 miles apart. This paper presents the architecture of HECODES and describes the approach it takes to the provision of cooperation, knowledge-based scheduling, domain-independent communication, deadlock treatment, homomorphic transformation of heterogeneous inexact reasoning models, and the synthesis of solutions.

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