Temporal Reasoning in REAKT: An Environment for Real-Time Knowledge-Based Systems

Abstract

Temporal representation and reasoning, as the ability of reasoning about temporal data, representing past, current and expected application states, is an important function to be accomplished by Real-Time Knowledge-Based Systems (RTKBS), since these systems are usually applied in dynamic time-dependent problem domains. However, this feature is not completely nor usually addressed in current RTKBS tools. In this paper, a RTKBS architecture is presented, with special emphasis on its temporal reasoning function, which is integrated in a RTKBS environment with a multi-agent blackboard architecture. Representation and management of temporal data, representing past, current and future problem states and reasoning processes within these contexts are detailed.