COSA – A generic cognitive system architecture based on a cognitive model of human behavior

This article presents an overview of COSA, a cognitive system architecture, which is a generic framework proposing a unified architecture for cognitive systems. Conventional automation and similar systems lack the ability of cooperation and cognition, leading to serious deficiencies when acting in complex environments, especially in the context of human-computer interaction. Cognitive systems based on cognitive automation can overcome these deficiencies. Designing such artificial cognitive systems can be considered a very complex software development process. Although a number of developments of artificial cognitive systems have already demonstrated great functional potentials in field tests, the engineering approach of this kind of software is still a candidate for further improvement. Therefore, wide-spread application of cognitive systems has not been achieved yet. This article presents a new engineering approach for cognitive systems, implemented by the COSA framework, which may be a crucial step forward to achieve a wide-spread application of cognitive systems. The approach is based on a new concept of generating cognitive behaviour, the cognitive process (CP). The CP can be regarded as a model of the human information processing loop whose behaviour is solely driven by "a-priori knowledge". The main features of COSA are the implementation of the CP as its kernel and the separation of architecture from application leading to reduced development time and increased knowledge reuse. Additionally, separating the knowledge modelling process from behaviour generation enables the knowledge designer to use the knowledge representation that is best suited to his modelling problem. A first application based on COSA implements an autonomous unmanned air vehicle accomplishing a military reconnaissance mission. Some of the application experiences with the new approach are presented.