Abstract
In Chapter 1, Section 1.4, we outlined the various stages involved in engineering product development. We can view the design stage as the following iterative process:
-
1.
Problem Identification. The problem (at an abstract level), resource limitations, target technology, etc., are identified.
-
2.
Specification Generation. Design requirements and performance specifications are listed; constraints and objectives are specified.
-
3.
Concept Generation. The selection or synthesis of preliminary design solutions satisfying a few key constraints is performed; several alternative designs may be generated. This stage may subdivided into: 1) generate functional components, 2) obtain structures for these components, and 3) optimize structural combinations.
-
4.
Analysis. The response of the system to external effects, such as loads in the case of a structure, is determined by using an appropriate model for the system. The primary purpose of this stage is to obtain the responses — preliminary and detailed — needed to check the feasibility of a design.
-
5.
Evaluation. Solutions generated during the Concept Generation stage are evaluated for consistency with respect to the specifications. If several designs are feasible then (normally) an appropriate evaluation function is used to determine the best possible design to refine further. In the evaluation stage the relative optimality of several designs is determined.
-
6.
Detailed Design. Various components of the system are refined so that all applicable constraints or specifications are satisfied.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Allen, J. F., “Towards a General Model of Action and Time,” Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 23, Pages 123–154, 1984.
D’Ambrosio, B., Qualitative Process Theory using Linguistic Variables, Springer Verlag, 1989.
Artobolevsky, I. Mechanisms in Modern Engineering Design, Volumes 1-4, Mir Publishers, Moscow (English translation available).
Cannon Jr., R. H., Dynamics of Physical Systems, McGraw-Hill Publishers, 1967.
Bhaskar, R. and Nigam, A., “Qualitative Physics using Dimensional Analysis,” AI Journal, 1988.
Birkhoff, G., Hydrodynamics. A Study in Logic, Fact and Similitude. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1960.
Bobrow, D. (Editor), Qualitative Reasoning about Physical Systems, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1985.
Cagan, J. and Agogino, A., Innovative Design of Mechanical Structures from First Principles, Technical Report No: 87-0801-5, Berkeley Expert Systems Technology Laboratory, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, 1988 (Also appeared in AI EDAM).
Clark, R., Gallo, S. and Hamilton, T., “Qualitative Reasoning: Theory and Applications,” In Proceedings of the 32nd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, Nevada, January 10-13, 1994.
de Kleer, J. and Brown, J. S., Qualitative Physics Based on Confluences, Artificial Intelligence, 24: 7–83, 1984.
de Kleer, J. and Brown, J. S., Theories of Causal Ordering, Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 29, pages 33–62, 1986.
Drobot, S., “On the Foundations of Dimensional Analysis,” Studia Math-ematica, 14: 84–89, 1953.
Elzas, M. S., Zeigler, B. P., and Tuncer, O. I., Modelling and Simulation Methodology: Knowledge System Paradigms, North Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1989.
Falkenhainer, B. and Michalski, R., “Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative discovery: The Abacus System,” Machine Learning, Voluml 1, pages 367–401, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1986.
Falkenhainer, B. and Forbus, K., “Setting Up Large Scale Qualitative Models,” In Proceedings of AAAI-1988, pages 301–306, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1988.
Faltings, B., “Qualitative Kinematics in Mechanisms,” Artificial Intelligence, Volume 44, Pages 89–119, 1990.
Faltings, B. and Struss, P. (Editors), Recent Advances in Qualitative Reasoning, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1992.
Fault Isolation Procedures for UH-60A and EH-60A Helicopters, TM55-1520-237-T 15 December 1988, Change 5-30 June 1990.
Fishwick, P. A. and Luker, P. A. (Editors), Qualitative Simulation Modeling and Analysis, Springer Verlag, 1990.
Forbus, K. D., “Qualitative Process Theory,” Artificial Intelligence Journal, 24: 85–168, 1984.
Forbus, K. D., “Interpreting Observations of Physical Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, SMC-17: 350–359, 1987.
Forbus, K. D., Nielsen, P., and Faltings, B., “Qualitative Spatial Reasoning: The CLOCK Project,” Artificial Intelligence, Volume 51, Numbers 1-3, Pages 417–471, Octobter 1991.
Fouché, P. and Kuipers, B., “Reasoning about Energy in Qualitative Simulation,” Technical Report, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Texas Austin, also appeared in IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Vol. 22, No. 1, pages 47-63, 1992.
Fruchter, R., Law, K. H., and Iwasaki, Y., “An Approach to Qualitative Structural Analysis,” AIEDAM, Vol. 7, No. 3, pages 189–208, 1993.
Gelsey, A., “Automated Reasoning about Machines,” Artificial Intelligence, Volume 74, Pages 1–53, 1995.
Hamilton, T. P., “HELIX: An Application of Qualitative Physics to Diagnostics in Advanced Helicopters,” International Journal for AI in Engineering, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp 141–150, July, 1988.
Hayes, P. J. “The Naive Physics Manifesto,” In Michie, D. (Editor), Expert Systems in the Micro-Electronic Age, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1979.
Iwasaki, Y. and Simon, H. A, “Causality in Device Behavior,” Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 29, pages 3–32, 1986.
Iwasaki, Y. and Simon, H. A, “Causal Ordering: Reply to de Kleer and Brown,” Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 29, pages 63–68, 1986.
Iwasaki, Y., Model-Based Reasoning of Device Behavior with Casual Ordering, Ph. D. thesis, Dept. of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 1988.
Iwasaki, Y., “Qualitative Physics,” In A. Baxr, P. R. Cohen, and E. A. Feigenbaum (Editors), The Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, pages 323–413, Addison-Wesley, 1989.
Iwasaki, Y. and Simon, H., “Causality and Model Abstraction,” Artificial Intelligence, Vol., 61, No. 1, 1994.
Joskowicz, L. and Sacks, E., “Computational Kinematics,” Artificial Intelligence, Volume 51, Numbers 1-3, Pages 381–416, October 1991.
Kiriyama, T., Tomiyama, T., Yoshikawa, H., “Qualitative Reasoning in Conceptual Design with Physical Features,” In Faltings, B. and Struss, P. (Editors), Recent Advances in Qualitative Physics, pages 375–386, 1992.
Klir, G., Architecture of Systems Problem Solving, Plenum Press, 1985.
Kokar, M. M., “Determining Functional Formulas Through Changing Representation Base,” In Proceedings of AAAI-86, Fifth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 455–459. AAAI, 1986.
Kokar, M. M., “Determining Arguments of Invariant Functional Descriptions,” Machine Learning, 1: 403–422, 1986.
Kokar, M. M., “Generating Qualitative Descriptions of Continuous Physical Processes,” In Ras, Z. and Zemankova, M. (Editors), Methodologies for Intelligent Systems, pages 224–231. North-Holland, New York — Amsterdam — London, 1987.
Kokar, M. M., “Critical Hypersurfaces and the Quantity Space,” In Proceedings, AAAI-87, Sixth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 616–620. AAAI, 1987.
Kokar, M. M., “Accumulating Qualitative Knowledge,” In Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Intelligent Control, pages 574–579. IEEE, 1989.
Kokar, M. M., “An Example of a Consistent Quantitative/Qualitative Representation of a Dynamic System,” In Proceedings of the 1992 IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Control, 1992.
Kuipers, B. J., “The Limits of Qualitative Simulation,” In Proceedings of the Ninth Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 128–136, American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1985.
Kuipers, B. J., “Qualitative Simulation,” Artificial Intelligence Journal, 29: 289–338, 1986.
Kuipers, B. J., “Qualitative Simulation as Casual Explanation,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Vol. 17, No. 3., pages 432–444, 1987.
Kuipers, B. J. and Chiu, C, “Taming Intractable Branching in Qualitative Simulation,” Proceedings of IJCAI-1987, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, pages 1079–1086, 1987.
Kuipers, B. J. and Berleant, D., “Using Incomplete Quantitative Knowledge in Qualitative Reasoning,” Proceedings of AAAI-88, pages 324–329, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., 1988.
Kuipers, B. J., Chiu, C, Dalle Molle, D., and Troop, D., “Higher Order Derivative Constraints in Qualitative Simulation,” Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 51, pages 343–379, 1991.
Kuipers, B. J., Qualitative Reasoning: Modeling and Simulation with Incomplete Knowledge, Addison Wesley, 1994.
Lancaster, K., “The Scope of Qualitative Economics,” Review of Economic Studies, 29: 99–123, 1962.
Langley, P., “Data Driven Discovery of Physical Laws,” Cognitive Science, 5: 31–54, 1981.
Lee, W. W., Chiu, C, and Kuipers, B. J., Developments Towards Constraining Qualitative Simulation, Technical Report No: AI TR87-44, AI Lab., University of Texas at Austin, 1987.
Mohammed, J. and Simmons, R., “Qualitative Simulation of Semiconductor Fabrication,” In Proceedings NCAI-86, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1986.
Mavrovouniotis, M. L. and Stephanopoulos, G., “Formal Order-of-Magn-itude Reasoning in Process Engineering,” Computers in Chemical Engineering, Vol. 12, pages 867–880, 1988.
Mesarovic, M. D. and Takahara, Y., Abstract Systems Theory, Springer Verlag, 1989.
Monin, S A. and Yaglom, M. A., Statistical Fluid Mechanics: Mechanics of Turbulence, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London, England, 1973.
Mukerjee, A., “Qualitative Geometric Pesign,” Symposium on Solid Modeling Foundations and CAD/CAM Applications, Rossignac, J. and Turner, J. (Editors), ACM Press, 1991.
Mukerjee, A. and Joe, G., “A Qualitative Model of Space,” Technical Report, University of Texas at Austin, 1989, also appeared in Proceedings of NCAI-90, pages 721–727, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1990.
Murthy, S., “Qualitative Reasoning at Multiple Resolutions,” In Proceedings Seventh National Conference on AI, pages 296–300, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1988.
Murthy, S. and Addanki, S., “PROMPT: An Innovative Design Tool,” In Proceedings of Sixth NCAI, pages 637–642, Morgan-Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1987.
Padulo, L. and Arbib, M. A., Systems Theory: A Unified State Space Approach to Continuous and Discrete Systems, W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA, 1974.
Raiman, O., “Order of Magnitude Reasoning,” Proceedings AAAI-88, pages 100–104, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., 1984.
Raiman, O., “Order of Magnitude Reasoning,” Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 51, pages 11–38, 1991.
Roddis, K. and Martin, J., “CRACK: Qualitative Reasoning about Fatigue and Fracture,” IEEE Expert, Vol. 7, No. 4, pages 41–48, 1992.
Simon, H. A. “Causal Ordering and Identification,” In Hood, H. and Koopmans (Editors), Studies in Econometric Models, pages 49–74, John Wiley and Sons, 1953.
Simmons, R. Representing and Reasoning about Change in Geologic Interpretation, AI Technical Report 749, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Subramanian, D. and Wang, C-S., “Kinematic Synthesis with Configuration Spaces”, Research in Engineering Design, Vol. 7, Number 3, pages 193–213, 1995.
Tomiyama, T., Yoshikawa, H., and Kiriyama, T., “Conceptual Design of Mechanisms: A Qualitative Physics Approach,” In Kusiak (Editor), Concurrent Engineering: Automation, Tools, and Techniques, pages 131–152, John Wiley & Sons, 1992.
Trave-Massuyes, T., “Qualitative Analysis: Scope,” In Singh M. (Editor), Systems and Control Encyclopedia: Theory, Technology and Applications, pages 473–481, Pergammon Press, 1987.
Waltz, D. “Understanding Line Drawings of Scenes with Shadows,” In Winston, P. (Editor), The Psychology of Computer Vision, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1975.
Weld, D. “The Use of Aggregation in Qualitative Simulation,” Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 30, pages 1–18, 1986.
Weld, D. and de Kleer, J. (Editors), Qualitative Reasoning about Physical Systems, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1990.
Williams, B., “MINIMA: A Symbolic Approach to Qualitative Algebriac Reasoning,” Proceedings AAAI-88, pages 284–270, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., 1988.
Zeigler, B. P., “Towards a Formal Theory of Modeling and Simulation: Structure Preserving Morphisms,” Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, 19(4): 742–764, 1972.
Zeigler, B. P., Multi-Facetted Modelling and Discrete Event Simulation, Academic Press, 1984.
Zeigler, B. P., Klir, G., and Oren, T. I., Methodology in Systems Modeling and Simulation, North Holland Publishing Co., 1979.
Zytkow, J., “Combining Many Searches in the Fahrenheit Discovery System,” In Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Machine Learning, pages 281–287, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1987.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sriram, R.D. (1997). Qualitative Reasoning. In: Intelligent Systems for Engineering. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0631-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0631-9_7
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-1167-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0631-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive