The ExBed project was established to determine to which extent it
is feasible to apply AI techniques within embedded systems,
and what such techniques should look like. The resulting
environment was to consist of two distinct parts: the development
environment, where embedded applications are programmed and
tested, and the actual embedded target environment. At runtime
the resources of a 'standard' embedded microcomputer provide a
limiting factor for functionality, but there are no similar
limitations on the development environment.
The support of rule based programming was taken as the minimal
objective for the software to be developed in the project. The testing
and maintenance of rule based programs is known to be difficult.
Therefore, it was decided right at the start of the project to use
abstract data types as the basis of the programming methodology to be
developed. The expert system paradigms supported by ExBed were to be
integrated with a procedural host language.