General purpose architecture for intelligent computer-aided training

摘要

A training system for use in a wide variety of training tasks and environments comprising a user interface simulating the same information available to a trainee in the task environment which allows the trainee to assert actions to the system; a domain expert which can use the same information available to the trainee and carry out the same task; a training session manager for evaluating such trainee assertions and providing guidance to the trainee appropriate to his acquired skill level; a trainee model which contains a history and summary of the trainee actions; an intelligent training scenario generator for designing increasingly complex training exercises based on the current skill level and any weaknesses or deficiencies that the trainee has exhibited in previous interactions; and a blackboard that provides a common fact base for communication between the other components of the system. The domain expert contains a list of "mal-rules" which typifies errors usually made by novice trainees. Also, the training session manager comprises "intelligent" error detection and error handling components. The present invention utilizes a rule-based language having a control structure using a specific message passing protocol for tasks which are procedural or step-by-step in structure. The trainee may reach "the solution" by any of a number of alternate valid paths.