City Research Online

Abstract

The task of writing specifications for measuring instruments requires knowledge from many fields, including specification writing practices, measurement science and current instrumentation practice. The subject of this thesis is the automation of this difficult specialist task. This topic forms part of larger systems concerned with instrumentation system design automation at the Measurement and Instrumentation Centre at City University and the Measurement and Instrumentation Systems Centre at the South Australian Institute of Technology. The thesis commences with a thorough review of the specification process as applied to measuring instruments. This examination of the specification process, was performed with cognisance of the engineering management procedures in common use in industry. The outcome of this study was the extraction of salient methods and techniques needed to systemise the production of formatted instrument specifications. These were ensconced in a procedural program suite, Specriter 1, which demonstrated the potential of computerising the process. The valuable knowledge gained in the production and use of this system is discussed. The body of the thesis covers the more ambitious limited formal system, Specriter 3, which incorporates integral domain knowledge to provide substantial user assistance, and checking for consistency and reasonableness. The frame-based generalised documentation generation shell constructed for this task, is discussed together with the features which make it particularly useful for Specriter 3, such as, the ability to represent knowledge of the human interface, the output text, and the problem domain in a modularised fashion, the ability to reason with the contents of the knowledge base directly, and the complete independence of the knowledge base from the shell. The knowledge-base editor Framedt, is described, which enables the knowledge base to be readily altered or a new one constructed for a different document generation task. Specriter has been used in two practical applications, and these are referenced in the text.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	T Technology > TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Engineering > Electrical & Electronic Engineering School of Science & Technology > School of Science & Technology Doctoral Theses Doctoral Theses

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