Designing reusable rule-based architectures with design patterns

• Published in: Expert systems with applications 2002-11, Vol.23 (4), p.395-403
• Main Authors: de Souza, M.A.F, Ferreira, M.A.G.V
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Design patterns; Reuse in rule-based systems; Rule-based systems
• ISSN: 0957-4174; 1873-6793
• DOI: 10.1016/S0957-4174(02)00075-1

Rule-based systems or production systems still have great importance in the construction of knowledge systems. In these systems, the domain expertise to solve a problem is encoded in the form of ‘if–then’ rules, enabling a modular description of the knowledge, thus facilitating its maintenance and updating. Although they have been extensively described in the Artificial Intelligence literature, their design process is at times repeated because of the lack of common software architecture and the restrictions offered by some off-the-shelf libraries and systems. This paper proposes a reusable architecture for rule-based systems described through design patterns. The aim of these patterns is to constitute a design catalog that can be used by designers to understand and create new rule-based systems, thus promoting reuse in these systems. Additionally, the use of the described patterns in the design of an intelligent tutoring system architecture is exemplified.