Development of an object-oriented knowledge-based system for power electronic circuit design

A knowledge-based (expert) system (KBS) approach to power electronic circuit design is presented. The system, a power electronics and control tool, designated PECT, is written using Smalltalk-80, which integrates the artificial intelligence techniques of production rules for high-level knowledge representation. PECT embraces elements of power circuitry design and contains such features as selection of the circuit configuration, 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 process. System architecture as well as target design realization process are detailed. The criteria of development and the factors and requirements in building the PECT are also included. An example simulation is given representing a buck-boost converter using a gate turn-off thyristor (GTO) switch model.