Feline : A Case Study in the Design and Implementation of a Co-operating Expert System

Abstract

There has recently been considerable international interest in the possibility of building second generation expert systems as groups of co-operating problem solvers. In this paper we relate our experiences with such a system. FELINE is a co-operating expert system composed of five autonomous intelligent agents. These agents co-operate through communication to identify the causes of anaemia in cats. The paper addresses three key issues: development methodologies for building co-operating expert systems, making expert systems co-operative, and inter-agent problem solving techniques. We propose a tentative development methodology for co-operating expert systems and describe how it was applied in FELINE. We also present a detailed, domain independent account of the inter-agent problem solving paradigm devised for use in FELINE. We conclude with a brief critical assessment of our work. 1 Introduction IN RECENT YEARS there has been considerable interest in the possibility of building compl...