Application of an object-oriented expert system shell to a fermentation process

Our research deals with the intelligent supervision and control of batch fermentation processes. We built a pilot plant, with all the auxiliar electronics needed, for a MS-DOS computer to interact with the plant. We selected KAPPA-PC as the main platform to develop a real-time application. It is an object-oriented development environment, with the tools to define and manage class hierarchies including sets of rules, for intelligent functions. The shell works under MS-Windows, and is open to userdeveloped specific C code. After some experimental modelling, we determined models, and defined intelligent classes to simulate the plant, to control the process, and to supervise it, in real-time.