A Support System Based on CBR for the Design
of Rubber Compounds in Motor Racing

Stefania Bandini and Sara Manzoni

Department of Computer Science, Systems, and Communication
University of MilanBicocca, via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, 8 - 200126 - Milan (Italy)
tel +39 02 64487835  fax +39 02 64487839
bandini@disco.unimib.it



Abstract. This work presents PRace, a knowledgebased system developed 
for the Motorsports Department of Pirelli Tyres. The system
supports the formulation of rubber compounds of tyre tread, in order to
take part (and win) in motor racing. Multiple knowledge representations
have been adopted and integrated into a single CaseBased Reasoning
(CBR) computational framework in order to capture the different competence 
involved in the decision making process. Moreover, a dedicated
representation formalism called Abstract Compounds Machine (ACM)
has been introduced in order to represent, compute, and integrate in the
CBR architecture the core knowledge regarding rubber compounds. The
result is a general case-based architecture where the adaptation step is
demanded to a component based on the ACM model.
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