ABSTRACT
This project deals with the design and implementation of an expert system for car faults diagnosis. The project is motivated by the need to guide car owners and learners motor mechanics in the maintenance and trouble shooting of motor problems without having to resort to presumptions and conjectures. Particularly, it is expected that the proposed design would ensure that car owners have proper assistance in times of crisis and what’s more will save them from the clutches of exploitative roadside mechanics. For this purpose a rule- base artificial intelligence (AI) technique was utilized to obtain theoretical and practical expert system parameters, and then a conceptual expert system was designed. The expert system functioning is based on the database of car faults, symptoms and their correction, which make up its knowledge base. The new system was developed using visual basic 6.0 programming language and access database. This language was chosen because of its easy syntax and features for developing windows based application.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page
Approval pageii
Dedicationiii
Acknowledgementiv
Abstractv
Table of contentsvi
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction1
1.1 Background of the study1
1.2 Problem statement2
1.3 Objectives3
1.4 Significance of the study4
1.5 Scope of the study5
1.6 Limitations5
1.7 Methodology5
CHAPTER TWO
2.1 Literature review7
2.2The Conceptual Structure of an Expert System14
2.2.1 Problem Assessment14
2.2.2 Knowledge Acquisition15
2.2.3 Knowledge Representation17
2.2.4 Verification18
2.2.5 Validation 18
2.3Testing Expert System 19
2.4MYCIN21
CHAPTER THREE
System analysis and design27
3.0Introduction26
3.1Weakness of the Present System28
3.2 Methodology28
3.3Knowledge acquisition28
3.3.1 Domain Expert29
3.3.2 Interview29
3.3.3 Consultation29
3.3.4 Diagnosis32
3.3.5 Correction/ explanation 32
3.4 System Design33
3.4.1 Rule based development method34
3.4.2 Inference technique36
3.4.3 Flowchart of the proposed program 38
3.5 Program design39
3.5.1 High level model of the proposed system40
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0System implementation41
4.1 Introduction41
4.2 System requirement 42
4.3 Testing42
4.4 Maintenance 43
4.5 Program Documentation44
4.5.1 Sample input/output data formats45
4.5.2 Loading the package46
4.5.3 Exiting47
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0Summary, Recommendation and conclusion48
5.1 Summary 48
5.2 Recommendation49
5.3 Conclusion49
References66
Appendix I 75
Appendix II58