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This paper presents a new approach to parallel path planning for industrial robot arms with six degrees of freedom in an on-line given 3D environment. The method is based a best-first search algorithm and needs no essential off-line computations. The algorithm works in an implicitly discrete configuration space. Collisions are detected in the Cartesian workspace by hierarchical distance computation based on polyhedral models of the robot and the obstacles. By decomposing the 6D configuration space into hypercubes and cyclically mapping them onto multiple processing units, a good load distribution can be achieved. We have implemented the parallel path planner on a workstation cluster with 9 PCs and tested the planner for several benchmark environments. With optimal discretisation, the new approach usually shows very good speedups. In on-line provided environments with static obstacles, the parallel planning times are only a few seconds.
The World Wide Web is a medium through which a manufacturer may allow Internet visitors to customize or compose his products. Due to missing or rapidly changing standards these applications are often restricted to relatively simple CGI or JAVA based scripts. Usually, results like images or movies are stored in a database and are transferred on demand to the web-user. Viper (Visualisierung parametrisch editierbarer Raumkomponenten) is a Toolkit [VIP96] written in C++ and JAVA which provides 3D-modeling and visualization methodsfor developing complex web-based applications. The Toolkit has been designed to built a prototype, which can be used to construct and visualize prefabricated homes on the Internet. Alternative applications are outlined in this paper. Within Viper, all objects are stored in a scene graph (VSSG ), which is the basic data structure of the Toolkit. To show the concept and structure of the Toolkit, functionality, and implementation of the prototype are described.
Contrary to symbolic learning approaches, which represent a learned concept explicitly, case-based approaches describe concepts implicitly by a pair (CB; sim), i.e. by a measure of similarity sim and a set CB of cases. This poses the question if there are any differences concerning the learning power of the two approaches. In this article we will study the relationship between the case base, the measure of similarity, and the target concept of the learning process. To do so, we transform a simple symbolic learning algorithm (the version space algorithm) into an equivalent case- based variant. The achieved results strengthen the hypothesis of the equivalence of the learning power of symbolic and case-based methods and show the interdependency between the measure used by a case-based algorithm and the target concept.
Retrieving multiple cases is supposed to be an adequate retrieval strategy for guiding partial-order planners because of the recognized flexibility of these planners to interleave steps in the plans. Cases are combined by merging them. In this paper, we will examine two different kinds of merging cases in the context of partial-order planning. We will see that merging cases can be very difficult if the cases are merged eagerly. On the other hand, if cases are merged by avoiding redundant steps, the guidance of the additional cases tends to decrease with the number of covered goals and retrieved cases in domains having a certain kind of interactions. Thus, to retrieve a single case covering many of the goals of the problem or to retrieve fewer cases covering many of the goals is at least equally effective as to retrieve several cases covering all goals in these domains.
A Case Study on Specifikation,Detection and Resolution of IN Feature Interactions with Estelle
(1994)
We present an approach for the treatment of Feature Interactions in Intelligent Networks. The approach is based on the formal description technique Estelle and consists of three steps. For the first step, a specification style supporting the integration of additional features into a basic service is introduced . As a result, feature integration is achieved by adding specification text, i.e . on a purely syntactical level. The second step is the detection of feature interactions resulting from the integration of additional features. A formal criterion is given that can be used for the automatic detection of a particular class of feature interactions. In the third step, previously detected feature interactions are resolved. An algorithm has been devised that allows the automatical incorporation of high-level design decisions into the formal specification. The presented approach is applied to the Basic Call Service and several supplementary interacting features.
A large set of criteria to evaluate formal methods for reactive systems is presented. To make this set more comprehensible, it is structured according to a Concept-Model of formal methods. It is made clear that it is necessary to make the catalogue more specific before applying it. Some of the steps needed to do so are explained. As an example the catalogue is applied within the context of the application domain building automation systems to three different formal methods: SDL, statecharts, and a temporallogic.
A new approach for modelling time that does not rely on the concept of a clock is proposed. In order to establish a notion of time, system behaviour is represented as a joint progression of multiple threads of control, which satisfies a certain set of axioms. We show that the clock-independent time model is related to the well-known concept of a global clock and argue that both approaches establish the same notion of time.
Coloring terms (rippling) is a technique developed for inductive theorem proving which uses syntactic differences of terms to guide the proof search. Annotations (colors) to terms are used to maintain this information. This technique has several advantages, e.g. it is highly goal oriented and involves little search. In this paper we give a general formalization of coloring terms in a higher-order setting. We introduce a simply-typed lambda calculus with color annotations and present an appropriate (pre-)unification algorithm. Our work is a formal basis to the implementation of rippling in a higher-order setting which is required e.g. in case of middle-out reasoning. Another application is in the construction of natural language semantics, where the color annotations rule out linguistically invalid readings that are possible using standard higher-order unification.
This paper develops a sound and complete transformation-based algorithm forunification in an extensional order-sorted combinatory logic supporting constantoverloading and a higher-order sort concept. Appropriate notions of order-sortedweak equality and extensionality - reflecting order-sorted fij-equality in thecorresponding lambda calculus given by Johann and Kohlhase - are defined, andthe typed combinator-based higher-order unification techniques of Dougherty aremodified to accommodate unification with respect to the theory they generate. Thealgorithm presented here can thus be viewed as a combinatory logic counterpartto that of Johann and Kohlhase, as well as a refinement of that of Dougherty, andprovides evidence that combinatory logic is well-suited to serve as a framework forincorporating order-sorted higher-order reasoning into deduction systems aimingto capitalize on both the expressiveness of extensional higher-order logic and theefficiency of order-sorted calculi.
This paper describes a system that supports softwaredevelopment processes in virtual software corporations. A virtual software corporation consists of a set of enterprisesthat cooperate in projects to fulfill customer needs. Contracts are negotiated in the whole lifecycle of asoftware development project. The negotiations really influence the performance of a company. Therefore, it isuseful to support negotiations and planning decisions with software agents. Our approach integrates software agentapproaches for negotiation support with flexible multiserver workflow engines.
The concept of the Virtual Software Corporation ( VSC) has recently become a practical reality as a result of advances in communication and distributed technologies. However, there are significant difficulties with the management of the software development process within a VSC. The main problem is the significantly increased communicational complexity of the process model for such developments. The more classic managerial hierarchy is generally replaced by a "flatter" network of commitments. Therefore new solution approaches are required to provide the necessary process support. The purpose of this paper is to present a solution approach which models the process based on deontic logic. The approach has been validated against a case study where it was used to model commitments and inter-human communications within the software development process of a VSC. The use of the formalism is exemplified through a prototype system using a layered multi-agent architecture.
This paper investigates the suitability of the mobile agents approach to the problem of integrating a collection of local DBMS into a single heterogeneous large-scale distributed DBMS. The paper proposes a model of distributed transactions as a set of mobile agents and presents the relevant execution semantics. In addition, the mechanisms which are needed to guarantee the ACID properties in the considered environment are discussed.
In this paper we present an interpreter which allows to support the validation of conceptual models in early stages of the development. We compare hypermedia and expert system approaches to knowledge processing and show how an integrated approach eases the creation of expert systems. Our knowledge engineering tool CoMo-Kit allows a "smooth" transition from initial protocols via a semi-formal specification based on a typed hypertext up to an running expert system. The interpreter uses the intermediate hypertext representation for the interactive solution of problems. Thereby, tasks are distributed to agents via an local area network. This means that the specification of an expert system can directly be used to solve real world problems. If there exist formal (operational) specifications for subtasks then these are delegated to computers. Therefore, our approach allows to specify and validate distributed, cooperative systems where some subtasks are solved by humans and other subtasks are solved automatically by computers.
A practical distributed planning and control system for industrial robots is presented. The hierarchical concept consists of three independent levels. Each level is modularly implemented and supplies an application interface (API) to the next higher level. At the top level, we propose an automatic motion planner. The motion planner is based on a best-first search algorithm and needs no essential off-line computations. At the middle level, we propose a PC-based robot control architecture, which can easily be adapted to any industrial kinematics and application. Based on a client/server-principle, the control unit estab-lishes an open user interface for including application specific programs. At the bottom level, we propose a flexible and modular concept for the integration of the distributed motion control units based on the CAN bus. The concept allows an on-line adaptation of the control parameters according to the robot's configuration. This implies high accuracy for the path execution and improves the overall system performance.
Medical cyber-physical systems (MCPS) emerged as an evolution of the relations between connected health systems, healthcare providers, and modern medical devices. Such systems combine independent medical devices at runtime in order to render new patient monitoring/control functionalities, such as physiological closed loops for controlling drug infusion or optimization of alarms. Despite the advances regarding alarm precision, healthcare providers still struggle with alarm flooding caused by the limited risk assessment models. Furthermore, these limitations also impose severe barriers on the adoption of automated supervision through autonomous actions, such as safety interlocks for avoiding overdosage. The literature has focused on the verification of safety parameters to assure the safety of treatment at runtime and thus optimize alarms and automated actions. Such solutions have relied on the definition of actuation ranges based on thresholds for a few monitored parameters. Given the very dynamic nature of the relevant context conditions (e.g., the patient’s condition, treatment details, system configurations, etc.), fixed thresholds are a weak means for assessing the current risk. This thesis presents an approach for enabling dynamic risk assessment for cooperative MCPS based on an adaptive Bayesian Networks (BN) model. The main aim of the approach is to support continuous runtime risk assessment of the current situation based on relevant context and system information. The presented approach comprises (i) a dynamic risk analysis constituent, which corresponds to the elicitation of relevant risk parameters, risk metric building, and risk metric management; and (ii) a runtime risk classification constituent, which aims to analyze the current situation risk, establish risk classes, and identify and deploy mitigation measures. The proposed approach was evaluated and its feasibility proved by means of simulated experiments guided by an international team of medical experts with a focus on the requirements of efficacy, efficiency, and availability of patient treatment.
Information technology support for complex, dynamic, and distributed business processes as they occur in engineering domains requires an advanced process management system which enhances currently available workflow management services with respect to integration, flexibility, and adapt ation. We present an uniform and flexible framework for advanced process management on an a bstract level which uses and adapts agent technology from distributed artificial intelligence for both modelling and enacting of processes. We identify two different frameworks for applying agent tec hnology to process management: First, as a multi-agent system with the domain of process manag ement. Second, as a key infrastructure technology for building a process management system. We will then follow the latter approach and introduce different agent types for managing activities, products, and resources which capture specific views on the process.
Estelle is an internationally standardized formal description technique (FDT) designed for the specification of distributed systems, in particular communication protocols. An Estelle specification describes a system of communicating components (module instances). The specified system is closed in a topological sense, i.e. it has no ability to interact with some environment. Because of this restriction, open systems can only be specified together with and incorporated with an environment. To overcome this restriction, we introduce a compatible extension of Estelle, called "Open Estelle". It allows the specification of (topologically) open systems, i.e. systems that have the ability to communicate with any environment through a well-defined external interface. We define aformal syntax and a formal semantics for Open Estelle, both based on and extending the syntax and semantics of Estelle. The extension is compatible syntactically and semantically, i.e. Estelle is a subset of Open Estelle. In particular, the formal semantics of Open Estelle reduces to the Estelle semantics in the special case of a closed system. Furthermore, we present a tool for the textual integration of open systems into environments specified in Open Estelle, and a compiler for the automatic generation of implementations directly from Open Estelle specifications.
This paper describes the architecture and concept of operation of a Framework for Adaptive Process Modeling and Execution (FAME). The research addresses the absence of robust methods for supporting the software process management life cycle. FAME employs a novel, model-based approach in providing automated support for different activities in the software development life cycle including project definition, process design, process analysis, process enactment, process execution status monitoring, and execution status-triggered process redesign. FAME applications extend beyond the software development domain to areas such as agile manufacturing, project management, logistics planning, and business process reengineering.
This research for this thesis was conducted to develop a framework which supports the automatic configuration of project-specific software development processes by selecting and combining different technologies: the Process Configuration Framework. The research draws attention to the problem that while the research community develops new technologies, the industrial companies continue only using their well-known ones. Because of this, technology transfer takes decades. In addition, there is the fact that there is no solution which solves all problems in a software development project. This leads to a number of technologies which need to be combined for one project.
The framework developed and explained in this research mainly addresses those problems by building a bridge between research and industry as well as by supporting software companies during the selection of the most appropriate technologies combined in a software process. The technology transformation gap is filled by a repository of (new) technologies which are used as a foundation of the Process Configuration Framework. The process is configured by providing SPEM process pattern for each technology, so that the companies can build their process by plugging into each other.
The technologies of the repository were specified in a schema including a technology model, context model, and an impact model. With context and impact it is possible to provide information about a technology, for example, its benefits to quality, cost or schedule. The offering of the process pattern as output of the Process Configuration Framework is performed in several stages:
I Technology Ranking:
1 Ranking based on Application Domain, Project & Impact
2 Ranking based on Environment
3 Ranking based on Static Context
II Technology Combination:
4 Creation of all possible Technology Chains
5 Restriction of the Technology Chains
6 Ranking based on Static and Dynamic Context
7 Extension of the Chains by Quality Assurance
III Process Configuration:
8 Process Component Diagram
9 Extension of the Process Component Diagram
10 Instantiation of the Components by Technologies of the Technology Chain
11 Providing process patterns
12 Creation of the process based on Patterns
The effectiveness and quality of the Process Configuration Framework have additionally been evaluated in a case study. Here, the Technology Chains manually created by experts were compared to the chains automatically created by the framework after it was configured by those experts. This comparison depicted that the framework results are similar and therefore can be used as a recommendation.
We conclude from our research that support during the configuration of a process for software projects is important especially for non-experts. This support is provided by the Process Configuration Framework developed in this research. In addition our research has shown that this framework offers a possibility to speed up the technology transformation gap between the research community and industrial companies.