Towards a general signal interpretation system-signal-to-symbol conversion level

The signal-to-symbol conversion level of a generic signal interpretation system is presented. Using an application-independent structure, the system can compile user-supplied application-specific task descriptions to generate programs capable of performing statistic and structural pattern recognition, and reasoning in a given application domain. The computation of three types of symbols, quantitative symbols, qualitative symbols, and compound symbols, is outlined. The notion of context of symbols and its use in the system are discussed. In this system, symbolic processing, signal processing routine, and similarity measure can be specified in terms of situations. An evaluation of the system performance in an application of nondestructive testing of a steam generator using eddy current signals is given