Qualitative Reasoning about Physical Systems: an Artijicial Intelligence Perspective

Some interdisciplinury issues concerning artificial intelligence (AI) are explored in relation to modelling in physics and engineering. A short survey is given of‘ automated qualitative reasoning about physical systems, which in recent years has become an active research area in AI, and has been partly influenced by system dynamics. The conceptual aspects of‘ the A I approach to physical science are critically assessed, und the mutuul relevance of‘ the two disciplines is pointed out. In particular, we indicate how bond graphs can be interpreted as an AI knowledge representation lunguage. On this basis, a knowledge-based approach, called quulitative bond unalysis (QuBA), is discussed that exploits bond graphs such that a computational AI system is able to deduce qualitative information ubout physical systems.