An expert system for implementing communication protocols

The Protocol Machine Expert System (PMES) for implementing communication protocols is described. The objective is to develop and implement a general model for communication protocols based on the principles of finite-state machines. The authors have designed an inference method and knowledge representation method, based on semantic networks, for implementing this model. A semantic net consists of points called nodes connected by links called arcs that describe the relations between the nodes. The authors have added interactive capability and automatic error detection to check for invalid external events and other types of errors in their model. They have illustrated the use of PMES by applying it to the TCP (transmission control protocol) of the US Department of Defense Model for Communication.<>