Standards Usage Language (SUL)

One of the major objectives in computer-aided engineering has been to devel op computer-aided support for using standards in design systems. To elimina te most: of the problems that occur when the knowledge present in standards is embedded in design systems, generalized standards processors have been proposed and prototyped by many researchers. In order for these generalized standards processors to be independent of the design systems that use them , yet allow for communication between them. a general and standardized comm unication protocol between them is required. This paper describes such a co mmunication protocol in the form of a communication language we call the St andards Usage Language (SUL). SUL has been designed primarily to allow a de sign system to describe design information, ask for an evaluation of the co nformance of a design to a standard. request the description of the feasibl e design space, browse the logical content of a standard, and request detai ls of an evaluation. SUL provides this information in a form independent of the knowledge representation and reasoning method used to model the provis ions of the standard. In this sense, SUL can be viewed as an application pr ogramming interface between design systems and generalized standards proces sing programs that check the conformance of a design against design standar ds.