A Development of Forward Inference Engine and Expert Systems based on Relational Database and SQL

In this research, we propose a mechanism to develop an inference engine and expert systems based on relational database and SQL (structured query language). Generally, former researchers had tried to develop an expert systems based on text-oriented knowledge base and backward/forward (chaining) inference engine. In these researches, however, the speed of inference was remained as a tackling point in the development of agile expert systems. Especially, the forward inference needs more times than backward inference. In addition, the size of knowledge base, complicate knowledge expression method, expansibility of knowledge base, and hierarchies among rules are the critical limitations to develop an expert systems. To overcome the limitations in speed of inference and expansibility of knowledge base, we proposed a relational database-oriented knowledge base and forward inference engine. Therefore, our proposed mechanism could manipulate the huge size of knowledge base efficiently, and inference with the large scaled knowledge base in a short time. To this purpose, we designed and developed an SQL-based forward inference engine using relational database. In the implementation process, we also developed a prototype expert system and presented a real-world validation data set collected from medical diagnosis field.