Knowledge representation and transfer

Knowledge representation and transfer

At present, knowledge representation is embryonic and targets

simple mono-platform and mono-domain applications,

therefore limiting the potential of multiple coordinated actions

between agents. Consequently, the main application

for autonomous underwater vehicles is information gathering

from sensor data. In a standard mission flow, data is

collected during mission and then post-processed off-line.

However, in order to be able to let decision making technologies

evolve towards providing higher levels of autonomy

and control, embedded service-oriented agents require

access to higher levels of knowledge representation or abstraction

(see Fig. 5). These higher levels will be required to

provide knowledge representation for contextual awareness,

temporal awareness and behavioural awareness.

Two sources can provide this type of information: the domain

knowledge extracted from the original expert (orientation)

or the inferred knowledge from the processed sensor

data (observation). In both cases, it will be necessary for the

information to be stored, accessed and shared efficiently by

the deliberative agents while performing a mission. These

agents, providing different capabilities, might even be distributed

among the different platforms working in collaboration.

Semantic frameworks have recently raise interest providing

hierarchical distributed representation of knowledge for

multidisciplinary agent interaction (Patr´on et al. 2008a).

They provide with a common machine understanding representation

of knowledge between embedded agents that is

generic and extendable. They also include a reasoning interface

for inferring new knowledge from the observed data and

knowledge stability by checking for inconsistencies. These

frameworks improve local (machine level) and global (system

level) situation awareness and context for mission and

trajectory behavior. They can therefore act as enablers for

autonomy and on-board decision making.

There are currently several institutions and consortiums

developing standards for knowledge representation under

these frameworks. Particular attention is taking the effort

describing the concepts and relationships for the domains of

unmanned platforms (jau 2008) and the underwater environments

(mmi 2008). An example is shown in Fig. 6.