Artificial Intelligence Group Project

ENCODE
Environment for
Configuration Design

Copernicus Project 0149 (EU funded 420k ECU)
March 1994- February 1998

Partners Overview Results Publications
Encode Workbench

Project Partners
	The Knowledge Media Institute at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. The Artificial Intelligence Group at the Department of Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence, Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia Tomas Sabol (project leader) Marek Hatala Marian Mach Jan Paralic Martin Dzbor The Department of Mechanics, Czech Technical University, Prague, Czech Republic DccS, Ltd. , Czech Republic ASEPO, Ltd., Czech Republic
Project Overview
	Key idea 1: By transferring the VITAL workbench to a PC environment, the European Union's state-of-the-art methodology and tools for developing knowledge-based systems is accessible to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover, the PC-based workbench can be also exploited within the European Union. For example the OU envisages using the workbench in its own distance teaching. Since well-configured PCs now perform as well as typical Unix workstations on the type of graphics and artificial intelligence applications for which VITAL was designed, the ENCODE workbench can also be a cheap alternative for small and medium enterprises of the European Union. Key idea 2: By focusing on configuration design, powerful specialised problem solving methods and tools were developed for domains of high economic significance. Consequently, ‘prefabricated’ problem solving methods together with the VITAL methodology significantly simplify the development of new design applications. The specialised tools have been integrated with the workbench. The efficacy of these two key ideas was put to the test by developing real complex applications. Although the workbench was originally intended for the configuration design problems it can be used for the development of any knowledge based system.
Results
	The Encode workbench integrating several tools has been developed within the project. The workbench supports the knowledge based system development during the whole development cycle. The tools were implemented by following partners: OCML -- Knowledge Media Institute, OUSEL – Knowledge Media Institute and Czech Technical University, OCOUS – Czech Technical University, Constraint satisfaction engine – Technical University of Kosice (available from this site), OCML visualisation tool -- Technical University of Kosice, CSE visualisation tool -- Technical University of Kosice (available from this site). Two pilot application have been developed within the Encode project: Truck cabin design -- DccS Ltd. and Czech Technical University, Metal forming technology design – Knowledge Media Institute and Czech Technical University.
Publications
	There are several types of publications within the Encode Project. The following publications are available from this site: The Encode workbench manuals, The list of all publication published within the Encode project, The list of publication of the AIG members at TUKE (some available online).