Prolog Integrated with Constraints and Environment for Industrial and Financial Applications

PRINCE - 5246

Keywords constraint logic programming, Prolog, knowledge-based systems, logic programming

Start Date: 01-SEP-90 / Duration: 53 months

Objectives and Approach

The PRINCE project is a continuation of Prolog III (project 1106), which demonstrated the potential of the Constraint Logic Programming (CLP) approach through the successful development of Prolog III. To be applicable to large-scale applications, however, such a system must still achieve gains in performance, robustness, and expressiveness.

The general objectives of PRINCE are to:

Bring a Prolog III-like system to a higher level of industrial applicability and usefulness by means of global compilation, improvements of constraint-solving algorithms, more specific constraint domains, and better programming environments.
Validate and augment the industrial significance of such systems by applying them effectively to real-life applications provided and developed by IT users who are partners in this project. The application work will concern the areas of finance, industrial systems engineering and production planning and scheduling.
Integrate the experience of two major Prolog manufacturers, PrologIA and BIM, into a new joint system which would then have the means to become a significant industrial force. PrologIA has developed the Prolog II+ compiler and Prolog III, a major representative of the constraint logic programming languages. BIM has developed BIM-Prolog, one of the major conventional Prolog compilers.

Progress and Results

A first prototype of the kernel of the future CLP platform (PROLOG compiler and constraint solvers) has been developed. Results in program analysis and pre-processing will be incorporated in the final prototype and will contribute to the future programming environment. Experiments in several application domains have provided an important set of requirements (new constraint solvers, programming facilities) to be satisfied in future versions of the prototype.

Collaboration with the CHIC (P5291) project on methodology for programming with CLP has been initiated.

Exploitation

BIM and PROLOGIA, thanks to their cooperation in this project, have signed a commercial alliance to cross-market their respective logic programming products.

PROLOGIA has already sold more than 600 licenses of PROLOG III worldwide.

Moreover, PROLOGIA has concluded a commercial agreement with NEXT (the American manufacturer of next-generation workstations): each NEXT workstation delivered in France will be equipped with PROLOG III.

Bosch and MBB intend to apply CLP techniques to system engineering activities, particularly complex technical systems design and diagnosis for mobile/autonomous systems. La Henin will apply CLP to risk analysis in the financial domain.

CONTACT POINT

Mr Guy Alain Narboni
PROLOGIA
Luminy-Case 919
F - 13288 MARSEILLE CEDEX 09
tel: + 33/ 91 268636
fax: + 33/ 91 419637
telex: 403527 BOX PROLOGIA F

Participants

PROLOGIA - F - C
BIM SA - B - P
ROBERT BOSCH GMBH - D - P
BANQUE LA HENIN - F - A
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL - UK - A
UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA DE MADRID - E - A
UNIVERSITE D'AIX-MARSEILLE II - F - A
MBB GMBH - D - A
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN - B - A
FAW - D - A

PRINCE - 5246, December 1993

please address enquiries to the ESPRIT Information Desk

html version of synopsis by Nick Cook