Systematic methods for knowledge acquisition and expert system development (for combat aircraft)

Nine cooperating rule-based systems, collectively called AUTOCREW which were designed to automate functions and decisions associated with a combat aircraft´s subsystems, are discussed. The organization of tasks within each system is described; performance metrics were developed to evaluate the workload of each rule base and to assess the cooperation between the rule bases. Simulation and comparative workload results for two mission scenarios are given. The scenarios are inbound surface-to-air-missile attack on the aircraft and pilot incapacitation. The methodology used to develop the AUTOCREW knowledge bases is summarized. Issues involved in designing the navigation sensor selection expert in AUTOCREW´s NAVIGATOR knowledge base are discussed in detail. The performance of seven navigation systems aiding a medium-accuracy inertial navigation system (INS) was investigated using Kalman filter covariance analyses. A navigation sensor management (NSM) expert system was formulated from covariance simulation data using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method and the ID3 algorithm.<>