Ontological Commitments in Knowledge-Based Design Software: A Progress Report

The increased sensitivity of engineered products to external forces requires new computer-based design tools that can express the richness and complexity of product knowledge. This paper is a progress report of the author’s research towards the development of such a knowledge-based design tool, called the Design Knowledge Specification Language (DKSL). A key goal is to ensure the maximum possible logical rigor. In order to do this, ontological commitments are constructed to map logical structures to the domain of design knowledge. The first part of the paper discusses a number of ontological commitments the author has discovered for design. The second part of the paper presents the current, incomplete implementation of DKSL. An example of the structural and steady-state thermal analysis of a wall is used to present DKSL’s capabilities. Although much work remains to be done, it appears that DKSL may be able to accurately and rigorously describe any design knowledge.