DEVELOPMENT OF AN OBJECT-ORIENTED KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEM FOR POWER ELECTRONIC-CIRCUIT DESIGN

A knowledge-based (expert) system (KBS) approach to power electronic c ircuit design is presented. The system, a power electronics and contro l tool, designated PECT, is written using Smalltalk-80, which integrat es the artificial intelligence techniques of production rules for high -level knowledge representation. PECT embraces elements of power circu itry design and contains such features as selection of the circuit con figuration, control facility, and power device best suited to a given application. It is interfaced with HSPICE, the commercial version of a general-purpose circuit simulation package, and a semiconductor power device library. Data retrieved from this library is converted into an object-oriented representation database. Analytical hierarchy process reasoning is performed on this data to aid the device selection proce ss. System architecture as well as target design realization process a re detailed. The criteria of development and the factors and requireme nts in building the PECT are also included, An example simulation is g iven representing a buck-boost converter using a gate turn-off thyrist or (GTO) switch model.