Abstract

Current theories in the qualitative simulation field tend to draw lines between the dynamic and kinematic behaviors of physical systems. However, cognitive scientists (Metz) believe that humans, including children, seem to have a unified knowledge representation scheme which supports various kinds of reasoning in describing mechanism behavior. If a person knows how a device works dynamically, he is likely capable of analyzing the kinematic behavior of the same device. Inspired by such an observation, we have built a computational model which applies the bond graph technique of system dynamics to perform both kinds of behavioral reasoning using the same underlying representation. Based on the notion of motion propagation, our system, KREATOR, generates either dynamic or kinematic descriptions depending on the input given. The model has been fully implemented and can handle both ordinary and intermittent mechanical devices.

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