Datacab: a geographical‐information‐system‐based expert system for the design of cable networks

Abstract: Telecommunication networks have evolved over time as a result of technological advances, andnetworktopologiesandequipmenthavebecomeincreasinglycomplex.Expertsystemsarebeingsuccessfullyappliedtothemanagementoftelecommunicationnetworks.Howev er,applyingexpertsystemstonetworkdesignisanotherespecially beneficial yet still not very common approach. Inthispaper we proposea rule-based expertsystem calledDatacab.DatacabwasdevelopedatEnditelEndesaincollaborationwiththeElectronicTechnologyDepartmentoftheUniversity ofSeville, fortheautomatic design ofhybridfibre coax(HFC) cable networks. Usingdatafroma geographical information system as input, it automatically generates viable HFC network designs.Keywords: telecommunication networks, expert system, HFC network, GIS 1. IntroductionAs a result of the great technological evolutionthat has taken place in telecommunications, it ispossible to communicate and access informa-tion rapidly, via telephony and communicationnetworkssuchastheInternet.Telecommunica-tion networks have evolved over time to satisfythe demands of different communication ser-vices, continuously requiring greater band-width and a better quality of service. Networktechnology has increased in complexity, gener-ating the need for a better administration ofthe resources of these systems, which has fos-tered the evolution of network managementsystems.On the other hand, research carried out in thefieldofartificialintelligencehasledtoimportantadvances in the treatment, storage and exploit-ing of knowledge. These advances include thefieldofknowledge-basedexpertsystems(Bucha-nan & Duda, 1982; Liebowitz, 1998; Ignizio,1991;Awad,1996;McGraw&Harbison-Briggs,2002).Expert systems are being successfully appliedto the realization of diverse tasks (interpreta-tion, prediction, diagnosis, design, planning,instruction, control etc.) in multiple fields suchas medicine, geology, chemistry and engineering(Liebowitz, 1998). Expert systems may alsobe applied to the field of telecommunicationnetworks, because many of the previously

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