Ontological Foundation for the Development of a Decision Support System in Laser-Based Additive Manufacturing

The necessity of integrating an intelligent decision support system (DSS) in the professional activities of laser-based additive manufacturing (LBAM) process engineers is discussed. The advantages of applying an ontological two-level approach to the formation of semantic information for developing an ontology-based DSS are highlighted. Its key feature is that ontological models are clearly separated from databases and knowledge bases formed on their basis. A set of related ontological models is presented as the basis for the intelligent DSS that is currently being developed. The composition of the set of models, the purpose of its components, and the possible types of relations between them are described. The set includes ontologies of reference databases on LBAM equipment and materials, an ontology for an archive of laser processing technological operation protocols, an ontology of a knowledge bases on the settings of laser processing modes and an ontology of the mathematical model database. The ensemble of ontological models is implemented on the IACPaaS cloud platform using its tools. Ontologies, databases and knowledge base, as well as DSS, are part of the LBAM knowledge portal, which was created and is being developed on the platform. This portal is intended to accumulate and further use the knowledge and experience collected by different technologists. In the future, it will facilitate the reduction of the number of preliminary experiments required to identify a suitable solution.