This is a core area of research in AI in general. It deals with the issues of the origin, content, representation, organization, access, use, and acquisition of qualitative models, especially models of the physical world. A model of the physical world captures an agent's comprehension of some aspect(s) of the world. We are interested in the issues of device comprehension in the form of qualitative models, and the representation, organization, use, and acquisition of device models. This work has led to a general theory of device comprehension in the form of structure-behavior-function (SBF) models.
A SBF model of a device specifies the structure and the functions of the device, and also its internal causal behaviors that specify how the device functions are composed from the functions of the structural components. The key idea is that intelligent agents comprehend how a device works at several different levels of abstraction and that this comprehension captures the functional, causal, compositional, and structural semantics of the working of the device.
The SBF theory of device models has evolved from our work on a number of projects including KRITIK, IDEAL, and AUTOGNOSTIC, and the theory, in turn, informs these projects. We have used the theory to model to a large spectrum of devices both physical and abstract (such as problem solvers). We have developed techniques of functional and causal analysis that use SBF device models for a range of tasks such as diagnosis and blame assignment, and adaptive design and redesign. We have also developed the method of adaptive modeling for generating SBF models of new devices by adapting the models of known devices. In addition, we have developed methods for abstracting generic models of physical processes and engineering mechanisms from the SBF models of specific devices. Current work focuses on model-based analogical reasoning and learning, and model-based reflection and learning.
For links to a complete list of papers and some ftp'able versions of the above papers go to: Complete Listing