A COMPUTATIONAL TOOL TO MODEL INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS

Abstract: This paper presents the implementation of acomputational tool for modeling intelligent systems under theparadigms of computational semiotics. It uses, as a modelingartifact, the framework given by object networks andmathematical objects (Gudwin 1996). Several aspects of thesystem dynamics, characteristic topology and selectionmechanisms are tackled in detail, aiming at a robustarchitecture for object network simulation in real-worldapplications. Keywords: Computational Semiotics, Modeling IntelligentSystem, Object Network. 1 INTRODUCTION The role of Semiotics within intelligent systems developmentand implementation is being recently studied as an importantfoundation paradigm able to provide a future basis for a generaltheory of intelligent systems (Albus 1997).Within many possible interactions between Semiotics andIntelligent Systems, we detach Computational Semiotics, i.e.,the attempt of emulating the semiosis cycle within a digitalcomputer. The main paradigm behind computational semioticsis "semiotic synthesis", i.e. the ability to use sign-processes andsemiosis cycles from an engineering point of view, as a designplatform for development of intelligent systems. Among otherthings, using computational semiotics paradigms we aretargeting the construction of autonomous intelligent systemsable to perform intelligent behavior, including perception,world modeling, value judgement, and behavior generation(Albus 1991). There is a claim that most part of intelligentbehavior should be due to semiotic processing withinautonomous systems, in the sense that an intelligent systemshould be comparable to a semiotic system. Mathematicallymodeling such semiotic systems is currently being the targetfor a group of researchers studying the interactions encounteredbetween semiotics and intelligent systems.The key issue in this study is the implementation of acomputational tool in order to enable us to model intelligentsystems and to study semiotic processes on computers. In thiswork we adopted a theoretic tool known as object networks.Object networks were first introduced by Gudwin (Gudwin1996), and have been used as formal background for thedevelopment of Computational Semiotics (Gudwin andGomide 1997a, Gudwin and Gomide 1997b, Gudwin andGomide Sep. 1997) in computer systems. More recently, objectnetworks were also used within the context of computationalintelligence, soft computing (Gudwin and Gomide Oct. 1997,Gudwin and Gomide 1998a), and computing with words(Gudwin and Gomide 1998b).