Model Construction for Knowledge-Intensive Engineering Tasks

Summary. The construction of adequate models to solve engineerings tasks is a eld of paramount interest. The starting point for an engineering task is a given system, S, or a set of systems, S, along with a shortcoming of information, often formulated as a question: Which component is broken in S? (diagnosis analysis) How does S react on the input u? (simulation analysis) Does a system with the desired functionality exist in S? (design synthesis) If such an analysis or synthesis question shall be answered automatically, both adequate algorithmic models along with the problem solving expertise of a human problem solver must be operationalized on a computer. Often, the construction of an adequate model turns out to be the key challenge when tackling the engineering task. Model constructionalso known as model creation, model formation, model nding, or model buildingis an artistic discipline that highly depends on the reasoning job in question. Model construction can be supported by means of a computer, and in this chapter we present a comprehensive view on model construction, characterize both existing and new paradigms, and give examples for the state of the art of the realization technology. Our contri