Interactive Computer Graphics for Expert‐System Verification

Abstract

This paper describes a portion of a research project to investigate the potential application of expert systems for operations planning at Manitoba Hydro. The emphasis in this paper is on the verification and validation issues of an expert system for water‐resources engineering. Verification during the research explored the use of interactive computer graphics and the cause‐and‐effect method of verification. The verification process is illustrated by a Manitoba Hydro case study, using an expert‐system module to test the validity of a hydraulic network consisting of a system of hydroelectric generating stations produced by consultation with the Energy Management and Maintenance Analysis [expert system] (EMMAES). Issues in developing the representation scheme for an interactive user interface are discussed. Coupling of the computer graphics with the expert‐system module, and use of the cause‐and‐effect method for verification is addressed in detail. This combination proved to be an efficient approach for verification of expert systems in the water‐resources domain.