AURA I

AURA I project description

GRANT NUMBER: GR/K41090 START DATE: 1/8/94 FINISH DATE: 31/7/97

DURATION: 36 months AMOUNT: £268,869


PROJECT OBJECTIVES
  1. To investigate and develop the use of neural network-based advanced associative memory in knowledge manipulation tasks;
  2. To develop methods for rapid manipulation of knowledge bases in smart information systems;
  3. To develop a prototype system supporting high-speed operations on inexact symbolic data using correlation matrix memory techniques;
  4. To demonstrate the application of the results in mission systems.

ACHIEVEMENTS
The AURA project has successfully delivered and demonstrated a prototype pattern matching engine, using binary neural network based associative memory.

An early prototype integrated (software + hardware) system was operational in March 1997.

Improved prototype hardware using the Presence design became operational in early-June 1997, and the current integrated system demonstrator was operational in October 1997.

More specifically, the project has delivered the following major results:

  1. The problems of representing data to CMMs to allow fast matching have been overcome, using a range of techniques including tensor product and superimposed binding methods.
  2. A new and highly efficient method (MBI) for extracting data from the superimposed binary output of the CMM has been developed.
  3. New methods have been developed for representing rules in multiple CMMs to overcome and exploit the partial match problem.
  4. In multiple CMM systems it is difficult to distinguish instances of partial match from instances of exact match. Methods have been developed to overcome this problem.
  5. It has been shown how the use of superimposed data representations can deal with commutativity and missing data when input to a neural network based on CMMs.
  6. It has been shown that CMMs can be implemented using low-cost technology with very good speed-ups over existing conventional and specialised computing systems.
  7. The utility of the methods has been demonstrated across a range of problems, including pattern classification, data association, database and address matching.
  8. A software library for the construction of systems incorporating AURA methods has been provided. The library is written in C++ and runs on SGI platforms and has now reached version 3.0.
  9. An experimental X Window System GUI version of the system has been constructed to demonstrate the basic functions provided by AURA in an easily understood way.
  10. A small hardware test bed system has been constructed. This is based on an in-house designed VME board with an FPGA chipset performing the core CMM computations. The board is installed in an SGI challenge machine, for evaluating new and potential applications.

MOTIVATION AND APPLICATIONS:

There is a critical need to reduce the workload of pilots in future generations of aircraft, especially at peak times. A major element of the workload concerns mission management tasks, and efforts are underway at British Aerospace (and elsewhere) to develop automated mission management aids. Such aids would free the pilot to undertake tasks needing particular human skills.

Typically, these automated aids must manipulate knowledge at very high speeds due to the high volume of data involved, and the rapid response times required. In the AURA project we have demonstrated a novel architecture, providing a fresh approach to some key problems in mission management systems.

In discussions with BAe during the project we have identified several areas of mission management where the AURA architecture can offer valuable improvements in knowledge-manipulation capability. Evaluation work in these areas continues, and we are now exploring other potential applications at BAe beyond the original scope of mission management systems. BAe has also agreed (in principle) to support an application for continuation of the work commenced in the AURA project.

During the project, significant applications of the AURA concept have been under development in other projects with The Post Office, and with Glaxo-Wellcome and Silicon Graphics. The latter project concerns matching of molecular structures during the process of drug design. This involves searching databases containing in excess of 100,000 molecules to find those most similar to a "query" molecule.

In summary, the diversity of this multi-sector industrial support is an indication of the highly generic nature of the technology developed in the AURA project. The potential for exploitation through industrial take-up or product development is now a very real prospect in the near to mid-term.


AURA II PROJECT

The original AURA project ended in July 1997, and the AURA work continues in a new project called AURA II.

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