An overview of IEEE P1232 AI-ESTATE. The standard for intelligent reasoning based systems test and diagnosis arrives

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology promises to ease cost and improve the supportability of new and existing systems. Many products are available which use AI techniques to assist in test and diagnosis of system malfunctions. The US military is currently deploying support equipment and primary systems which make use of AI in meeting their mission requirements. However, the lack of standard interface between these reasoning systems, their users and the support equipment which they control is preventing the achievement of many potential long-term benefits, and could cause loss of configuration control, as well as long-term support problems. Current test standards, such as IEEE 716-1995 (C/ATLAS), IEEE 993-1993 (TEDL), IEEE 981-1993 (RDL) and the IEEE 1029.X series of automatic test program generation (ATPG) standards provide no guidance regarding the use of AI techniques and test applications. Proposed AI standards, including Knowledge Query Management Language (KQML), Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) and IEEE P1252 (IMKA), do not specifically address test and diagnosis applications. In February 1990, the IEEE approved Project Authorization Request (PAR) 1232 authorizing the IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 20 (SCC-20) to begin development of a new test standard to fill this void, entitled AI-ESTATE. AI-ESTATE, as proposed in the recently submitted full use PAR 1232, stands for Artificial Intelligence Exchange and Service Tie to All Test Environments. AI-ESTATE encompasses all of Artificial Intelligence as it relates to test and diagnosis. AI-ESTATE will define the interfaces between a test related reasoning system, its users, target test equipment, test information knowledge bases and more conventional databases. AI-ESTATE will also define several test related knowledge and databases, including Fault Trees, Enhanced Diagnostic Inference Models and Constraint Models. This paper will define AI-ESTATE, discuss its background history, long term goals and architecture, its current status and the committee´s plan of action for continuing development of the standard.