EXPERT SYSTEMS
WHAT IS AN EXPERT SYSTEM?
An expert system is a computer program that is designed to solve complex problems and
to provide decision-making ability like a human expert. It performs this by extracting
knowledge from its knowledge base using the reasoning and inference rules according to
the user queries.
Characteristics of Expert Systems
*High performance
*Understandable
*Reliable
*Highly responsive
Capabilities of Expert Systems
*Advising
*Instructing and assisting human in decision making
*Demonstrating
*Deriving a solution
*Diagnosing
*Explaining
*interpreting input
*Predicting results
*Justifying the conclusion
*Suggesting alternative options to a problem
HISTORY OF EXPERT SYSTEM
The expert system is a part of AI, and the first ES was developed in the year 1970, which was the first successful
approach of artificial intelligence.
It solves the most complex issue as an expert by extracting the knowledge stored in its knowledge base.
The system helps in decision making for complex problems using both facts and heuristics like a human expert.
DENDRAL: It was an artificial intelligence project that was made as a chemical analysis expert system. It was
used in organic chemistry to detect unknown organic molecules with the help of their mass spectra and knowledge
base of chemistry.
MYCIN: It was one of the earliest backward chaining expert systems that was designed to find the bacteria
causing infections like bacteremia and meningitis. It was also used for the recommendation of antibiotics and the
diagnosis of blood clotting diseases.
PXDES: It is an expert system that is used to determine the type and level of lung cancer. To determine the disease,
it takes a picture from the upper body, which looks like the shadow. This shadow identifies the type and degree of
harm.
CaDeT: The CaDet expert system is a diagnostic support system that can detect cancer at early stages.
ARCHITECTURE OF ES
COMPONENTS OF EXPERT
SYSTEMS
The components of ES include –
• Knowledge Base
• Inference Engine
• User Interface
KNOWLEDGE BASE
• It contains domain-specific and high-quality knowledge.
• Knowledge is required to exhibit intelligence. The success of any ES majorly depends
upon the collection of highly accurate and precise knowledge.
What is Knowledge ?
The data is collection of facts. The information is organized as data and facts about the
task domain. Data, information, and past experience combined together are termed
as knowledge.
Components of Knowledge Base
•Factual Knowledge − It is the information widely accepted by the Knowledge Engineers
and scholars in the task domain.
•Heuristic Knowledge − It is about practice, accurate judgement, one’s ability of evaluation,
and guessing.
Knowledge representation
It is the method used to organize and formalize the knowledge in the knowledge base. It is
in the form of IF-THEN-ELSE rules.
Knowledge Acquisition
The success of any expert system majorly depends on the quality, completeness, and
accuracy of the information stored in the knowledge base.
The knowledge base is formed by readings from various experts, scholars, and the Knowledge
Engineers. The knowledge engineer is a person with the qualities of empathy, quick learning,
and case analyzing skills.
Inference Engine
Use of efficient procedures and rules by the Inference Engine is essential in deducting a
correct, flawless solution.
To recommend a solution, the Inference Engine uses the following strategies −
•Forward Chaining
•Backward Chaining
Forward Chaining
It is a strategy of an expert system to answer the question, “What can happen next?”
This strategy is followed for working on conclusion, result, or effect. For example, prediction
of share market status as an effect of changes in interest rates.
Backward Chaining
With this strategy, an expert system finds out the answer to the question, “Why this happened?”
This strategy is followed for finding out cause or reason. For example, diagnosis of blood
cancer in humans.
User Interface
User interface provides interaction between user of the ES and the ES itself. It is
generally Natural Language Processing so as to be used by the user who is well-
versed in the task domain. The user of the ES need not be necessarily an expert in
Artificial Intelligence.
It explains how the ES has arrived at a particular recommendation. The explanation
may appear in the following forms −
•Natural language displayed on screen.
•Verbal narrations in natural language.
•Listing of rule numbers displayed on the screen.
Expert Systems Limitations
No technology can offer easy and complete solution. Large systems
are costly, require significant development time, and computer
resources. ESs have their limitations which include −
•Limitations of the technology
•Difficult knowledge acquisition
•ES are difficult to maintain
•High development costs
APPLICATIONS OF EXPERT SYSTEM
EXPERT SYSTEM TECHNOLOGY
•Expert System Development Environment − The ES development environment includes hardware and
tools. They are −
• Workstations, minicomputers, mainframes.
• High level Symbolic Programming Languages such as LISt Programming (LISP)
and PROgrammation en LOGique (PROLOG).
• Large databases.
•Tools − They reduce the effort and cost involved in developing an expert system to large extent.
• Powerful editors and debugging tools with multi-windows.
• They provide rapid prototyping
• Have Inbuilt definitions of model, knowledge representation, and inference design.
•Shells − A shell is nothing but an expert system without knowledge base. A shell provides the
developers with knowledge acquisition, inference engine, user interface, and explanation facility. For
example, few shells are given below −
• Java Expert System Shell (JESS) that provides fully developed Java API for creating an expert
system.
• Vidwan, a shell developed at the National Centre for Software Technology, Mumbai in 1993. It
enables knowledge encoding in the form of IF-THEN rules.
BENEFITS OF EXPERT SYSTEMS
•Availability − They are easily available due to mass production of
software.
•Speed − They offer great speed. They reduce the amount of work an
individual puts in.
•Less Error Rate − Error rate is low as compared to human errors.
•Reducing Risk − They can work in the environment dangerous to
humans.
•Steady response − They work steadily without getting motional, tensed
or fatigued.
REFERENCE :
• www.tutorialspoint.com
• www.javatpoint.com
THANK YOU
