摘要: |
This paper provides a framework for integrating the spatial data manipulation strengths of a geographic information system (GIS) with the interactive problem-solving capabilities of a knowledge-based expert system (KBES) through emulation of the knowledge of human experts. While the integration of a GIS with KBES has practical applications throughout the transportation profession, this study uses an Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) pavement management system example to illustrate this integration. The pavement management process involves spatially-indexed information, human expertise, heuristic knowledge, and multiobjective decision making. These characteristics make a pavement management system ideally suited for implementation in an integrated GIS/KBES environment. In this application, the GIS provides spatial data as context to a KBES that makes use of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's CLIPS rule-based expert system shell. The KBES retrieves information from the GIS as needed to produce an outcome. As the KBES works, the knowledge base is updated for future processes. In this way, the KBES is able to learn from the previous applications of the system. Once processed by the KBES, the results can be passed back to the GIS for further analysis and display. |