This project will establish a machine intelligence laboratory to be utilized to strengthen the undergraduate program by directly supporting hands-on experience in two new machine intelligence courses: Introduction to Machine Intelligence and Expert Systems: Principles and Applications. In addition, undergraduates from other departments will benefit through the opportunity to apply expert system technology in their disciplines. The laboratory equipment being acquired consists of a network of ten SUN workstations, two acting as file servers and the other eight as economical diskless nodes. Interface technology including TV cameras and digital scanners are connected to the network. Software running on the machines includes a mixture of public domain and commercial software implementing vision analysis tools, a neural network visualization tool and a variety of commercial expert system shells. The combination of innovative software, powerful workstations and modern interface equipment will provide an effective and important environment for the hands-on projects and assignments of the new courses.
