Mehran University Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (Apr 2012)
The Specification of an Expert System for Building Bylaws Compliance
Abstract
An Expert System is a computer program that simulates the human intelligence and behaviour in specific and limited domains. It is used to solve problems with tricks, shortcuts and heuristics i.e. rules of thumb. Checking a Plan (Map) to verify its compliance with building bylaws is a complex task mainly due to various rules and the exceptions to those rules. Humans are prone to make errors in such situations. Due to the problems faced by Building Control Department, HDA ( Hyderabad Development Authority) there is a strong need to develop a computerized system. In this research we have developed a prototype named as ESBBC (Expert System for Building Bylaws Compliance) for HDA that can help in their building plan checking system. The proposed solution is merging three frameworks, i.e. Java an OOP (Object Oriented Programming) language, Prolog- a rule based language and MS Access- for database. The solution is fulfilling the three main requirements of the HDA, i.e. Determination of whether a particular plan is in compliance with predefined building bylaws or not. (2) Offering search facility. (3) Maintaining records of plans which are entered for compliance checking. We have checked plans of 20 properties according to HDA building regulations using ESBBC and presented their results. The results show that ESBBC has capability to identify errors made by humans.
