Environmental emergency management supported by knowledge modelling techniques

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Hernández, Josefa Z. | Serrano, Juan M.

Affiliations: Department of Artificial Intelligence, Technical University of Madrid, Campus de Montegancedo s/n, Boadilla del Monte 28660, Spain E‐mail: phernan@dia.fi.upm.es | ESCET, Rey Juan Carlos University, Independencia 12, Móstoles 28931, Spain E‐mail: jserrano@escet.urjc.es

Abstract: At present, complex telematics infrastructures are used to get information about the performance of natural or artificial installations that need to be supervised. However, a forward step towards intelligent assistance to emergency management requires a strategic processing layer complementing the services of the available information systems. This additional processing layer may elaborate on the basic information and provide conclusions and explanations understandable by the human experts. This paper proposes the use of advanced knowledge modelling techniques to develop systems with such an intelligent assistance capability. Starting from the identification of the user‐system interaction needs, a generic knowledge model is described integrating the knowledge pieces required to perform the reasoning processes, while a simulator of the physical system is necessary to calibrate the model. The feasibility of the approach is illustrated with an example in the domain of emergencies caused by industrial accidents.

Journal: AI Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 13-22, 2001