Information Data Bank Taking into Account the Requirement for the Structure of Information
Abstract Generated abstract
The paper discusses the organization of an information data bank for automated control systems in power production, where real-time operation, reliability, and gradual transition from non-automated procedures impose specific requirements on data structure. It argues that the information base should function as a production model, support automatic and dialogue modes of use, allow dynamic updates, and remain adaptable despite limited random-access memory and changing operational conditions. The proposed principles emphasize a small number of basic arrays, minimal stored computational attributes, generation of intermediate and summary arrays only as needed, and formulation of control-system tasks as queries to the data bank. This organization is presented as a way to reduce processing time while enabling new combinations of accumulated data and reusable programs for data processing and output.
Full Text
INFORMATION DATA BANK TAKING INTO ACCOUNT REQUIREMENTS FOR THE STRUCTURE OF INFORMATION
A. A. Tereshchenko, V. I. Zhulmin
(Presented by the Department of Applied Mathematics, TPI)
Studies of the information needs of automated control systems with independent data processing have shown the advisability of storing information in the system in the form of a certain centralized fund, organized according to a single principle and allowing arbitrary access to its contents. Such a centralized information fund has been called an information bank, or data bank.
The study of the specifics of power production indicated the need to choose an effective organization of data in the system. The information system in a power pool is intended to supply consumers only with current information, with the results of short-term operational forecasting, and with summary information relating to the current operational period of an object’s work. Interaction with consumers and sources of information may proceed in various ways: either fully automatically—the issuance of processed information according to preassigned algorithms, proceeding from current and accumulated source data—or semi-automatically—the issuance of data upon request and their refinement under corrective actions by the consumer, i.e., the use of the information system as a partner in a user–operational information system dialogue.
In dialogue mode, the automatic part of the system is a person’s assistant, but does not replace him at any completed interval of work. The decision and the resulting information in dialogue mode arise as a product of the interaction of man and machine, with the principal, controlling role belonging to man.
The information system operates in real time and is intended not only for the search and issuance of information in a form convenient for a person, but also for entering new information, dynamically changing the stored information, and organizing and carrying out the process of obtaining new information from the source information. The requirements of reliability and timeliness in reflecting the object entail restrictions on the times for receiving new data, the times for processing them, the times for introducing changes into the stored information, and in some cases also into the organizational structure of the system.
As a rule, the information bank has to be created on the basis of an existing non-automated information system.
Under these conditions, such an organization of the system is necessary as makes it possible to pass gradually from the forms of interaction that existed in the system before its automation to more advanced forms, which are supported by the technical capabilities of the automated system.
Here it should also be noted that the parameters of the object and its model adopted at the design stage, as a rule, do not reflect the object completely and accurately. Therefore, in the course of operation the information system must adapt to real conditions. Hence the requirements for ease of making changes in the information data bank. One of the important constraints under present conditions is the comparatively small size of the computer’s random-access memory. When working on a real-time scale, this constraint is especially perceptible and may make it impossible to choose a data organization that is convenient in all other respects, since the use of media with more complex (slower) access for storing constantly used arrays of operational data is fraught with an untimely response of the information system to changes in the object.
Proceeding from the above requirements, one may indicate the basic principles of the machine organization of the information base of an ACS constructed on the data-bank principle:
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The information base, in a certain sense, is a model of production and reflects the parameters of production both directly and in comparison with the current planned state.
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The information base is implemented in the form of a small number of basic arrays containing a minimum of computational requisites; intermediate and summary arrays are organized each time only for solving particular problems and are not stored thereafter.
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The organization of the arrays ensures the solution of problems in one parallel “pass” through the basic arrays, which, in turn, is the principal condition for reducing to a minimum the machine time required for solving problems.
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Any ACS problem is reduced to the form of a query to the information bank. Its solution consists of selecting data from the bank, processing these data, and outputting the obtained results.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the information bank makes it possible:
to provide the consumer with qualitatively new information obtained as a result of all possible combinations of accumulated data;
to accumulate and combine programs for processing and issuing data.
LITERATURE
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V. M. Glushkov et al. Processing of Information Arrays in Automated Control Systems. Kiev, “Naukova dumka,” 1970.
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D. A. Pospelov. Introduction to the Theory of Computing Systems. Moscow, “Soviet Radio,” 1972.