Distributed case-based planning: Multi-agent cooperation for high autonomy

A drawback of typical knowledge-based systems, including case-based reasoning systems, is that human intervention is often unavoidable when there is a lack of knowledge necessary to solve a problem. The concept of cooperative case-based reasoning, where a case-based system may interact with another case-based system or other knowledge-based system to acquire the missing knowledge it needs to solve a problem is introduced. The basic mechanism by which this knowledge transfer takes place is the knowledge interface. The knowledge interface translates information in a knowledge-based system and places it into a globally recognized format; likewise, the knowledge interface converts information in the globally recognized format and places it into the context of the local system