14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/1 
II 
(Preparatory Acts) 
COMMISSION 
Draft Council Decision adopting the 1985 work programme for the European strategic 
programme for research and development in information technologies (ESPRIT) 
COM(84) 608 final 
(85/C11/01) 
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN 
COMMUNITIES, 
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the Euro­
pean Economic Community, Whereas the actual needs regarding the Com­
munity's contribution to new projects falling below 
the threshold referred to in Article 6 of the Council 
Decision (EEC) No 84/130 have been carefully ana­
lyzed with the result that a certain range of flexibil­
ity is required, 
Having regard to the Council Decision (EEC) 
No 84/130 of February 28th 1984 (>) adopting a pro­
gramme of Community research and development 
projects in the field of information technologies: 
ESPRIT, and in particular Article 3(2) thereof, HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION: 
Article 1 : 
Having regard to the draft work programme submit­
ted by the Commission, The ESPRIT work programme set out in the Annex 
is hereby adopted for 1985. 
Whereas, at talks organized by the Commission, 
industry and the academic world have given their 
opinions on the content of the projects to be 
launched and their priority, 
Whereas the Committee referred to in Article 4 of 
the Council Decision (EEC) 84/130 has been con­
sulted, 
Whereas the projects identified fall within the areas 
described in the technical annex to the Decision 
adopting the ESPRIT programme, Article 2: 
As a target figure 25 % of the Community's total 
contribution to new projects may be allocated to 
new projects which fall below the threshold referred 
to in the third indent of Article 6 (2) of the Council 
Decision (EEC) No 84/130 of February 28th 1984. 
This percentage figure may rise up to 35 % corres­
ponding to the nature of the actual project propo­
sals that will be put forward. 
Article 3: 
(') OJ L 67 of 9. 3. 1984, p. 54 This Decision shall enter into force on 
No C 11/2 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
ANNEX 
ESPRIT 1985 WORKPLAN 
The 1985 ESPRIT Workprogramme contained in this document was adopted by the 
Council of Ministers on 19 December 1984 
CONTENTS 
0. INTRODUCTION AND RESOURCES BREAKDOWN 3 
1. SUBPROGRAMME 1: ADVANCED MICROELECTRONICS 8 
R&D areas 1.1 Submicron MOS 9 
1.2 Submicron Bipolar 11 
1.3 Computer Aided Design (CAD) 12 
1.4 Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuits 16 
1.5 Optoelectronics 18 
1.6 Advanced Display Technologies 19 
1.7 (Number not used) 20 
1.8 General Type B research Themes 20 
1.9 Projects in support of more than one microelectronic area 21 
2. SUBPROGRAMME 2: SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY 23 
R&D areas 2.1 Theories, Methods and Tools 26 
2.2 Management and Industrial aspects 33 
2.3 Common Environment 37 
2.4 Evaluation and demonstration projects 41 
3. SUBPROGRAMME 3: ADVANCED INFORMATION PROCESSING 42 
R&D areas 3.1 Knowledge engineering 42 
3.2 External interfaces 50 
3.3 Information and Knowledge storage 53 
3.4 Computer Architectures 57 
3.5 Design and Systems aspects 61 
3.6 Focusing projects 63 
4. SUBPROGRAMME 4: OFFICE SYSTEMS 64 
R&D areas 4.1 Office Systems Science and Human factors 66 
4.2 Advanced workstations 69 
4.3 Communication systems 78 
4.4 Advanced filing and retrieval systems 83 
4.5 Integrated Office System 86 
5. SUBPROGRAMME 5: COMPUTER INTEGRATED MANUFACTURE 88 
R&D areas 5.0 Manufacturing Company Strategy and organisation 88 
5.1 Integrated System Architecture 89 
5.2 Computer Aided Design & Engineering (CAD/CAE) .... 90 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/3 
5.3 Computer Aided manufacturing (CAM) 92 
5.4 Machine Control Systems 94 
5.5 Subsystems and Components 97 
5.6 CIM Systems Applications 99 
INTRODUCTION AND RESOURCES BREAKDOWN 
This section is an integral part of the ESPRIT 1985 Workplan and is necessary for the 
proper interpretation of the plan. 
0.1. BACKGROUND 
The European Economic Community has 
launched the European Strategic Programme of 
Research and Development in Information 
Technology (ESPRIT). The ESPRIT Pro­
gramme is intended to promote precompetitive 
and generic research and development in infor­
mation technology through collaborative pro­
jects within the European Community which 
the Community shall finance in part. A man­
agement plan, the annual workplan, has been 
established within ESPRIT to enhance the con­
trol and accountability of the programme. 
Updated by the Commission in consultation 
with the ESPRIT Management Committee, 
each year, the document is submitted to the 
Council for approval. 
This is the second such workplan and it covers 
the period 1985-1989. under ESPRIT and under other Com­
munity and national programmes, and to 
serve as a basis to relate ESPRIT to tech­
nological programmes outside the Com­
munity. 
0.3. LAYOUT 
After the introductory section, the document is 
set out in five main sections corresponding to 
the major technical subprogrammes of 
ESPRIT. 
The partitioning of ESPRIT R&D into five 
subprogrammes is largely dictated by the need 
to be able to manage the task for the Com­
munity. In practice, the technical subpro­
grammes are interrelated and the Workplan 
indicates the significant interdependencies that 
exist. 
0.2. PURPOSE 
The purposes of the ESPRIT 1985 Workplan 
are: 
— to describe project areas and their interrela­
tionships, and include descriptions of cur­
rent work of 1984. 
— to serve as a guideline to potential propos­
ers by indicating the intended scope and 
content of the new work to be initiated in 
1985; 
— to provide a framework for assessment and 
review of projects under way, in order to 
appraise their progress individually and in 
relationship with each other; 
— to act as a reference document for consi­
derations relating to Coordinating activities Each subprogramme is split into a number of 
R&D areas and these are further subdivided 
into R&D topics and projects. 
Each R&D topic is discussed in detail, indi­
cating the anticipated continuation of work 
from previous years (in this case 1983/84), the 
work anticipated to start in 1984 and the new 
work required to be started in 1985 and further 
years. 
0.4. THE ESPRIT APPROACH 
The approach of ESPRIT is to create the tech­
nological basis which enables the Community 
to seize the opportunities associated with new 
information technology, to foster cooperation 
and to pave the way to standards of European 
origin. 
No C 11/4 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
ESPRIT is the Community programme which is 
specifically designed for R & D where collabor­
ation at the Community level is purposeful and 
which is pre-competitive. Collaboration is in 
order to achieve critical mass efforts, or to bring 
together the necessary expertise otherwise scat­
tered in the Community, or to create the poten­
tial to enlarge markets. In addition by provid­
ing the framework for concurrent technical 
approaches ESPRIT involves collaboration 
between companies and between companies 
and universities. 
ESPRIT's precompetition requirement is for 
areas where market opportunities can be seized 
within 5-10 years, and in doing so ESPRIT 
stands between basic research, and applied 
industrial research and development work. The 
former is not normally determined by industrial 
priorities and the latter responds to specific 
short term needs. 
In the selection and definition of IT areas that 
ESPRIT should address, two considerations 
have been important : 
(i) to have sufficient command of basic tech­
nologies; 
(ii) to have systems capabilities which are 
adaptable to changing market needs 
thereby permitting the knowledge of mar­
kets to have further influence on technol­
ogy development. 
Five areas or subprogrammes are of strategic 
importance to the Community. 
SUBPROGRAMME 1 — ADVANCED 
MICROELECTRONICS 
The major thrust is to develop the technologies 
of Silicon Metal Oxide and bipolar devices and 
Gallium Arsenide devices. Each has difference 
merits for specific applications. Associated 
CAD, CAM and other manufacturing methods 
are also addressed. 
Interrelation with other subprogrammes will 
ensure rapid definition of required VLSI 
demonstrator circuits. SUBPROGRAMME 2 —SOFTWARE 
TECHNOLOGY 
The Software Technology subprogramme aims 
at making available at Community level effi­
cient and cost-effective methods for the indus­
trial production of high-quality software, and is 
intended to lead to more rapid introduction of 
new products and a reduction of life-cycle costs 
in software. 
Work in the subprogramme addresses theories, 
methods and tools to put software production 
on a sound engineering basis, project manage­
ment and industrial aspects to put these into 
the business and industrial context, a common 
integrated software engineering environment 
and the demonstration of the effectiveness of 
new software production methods. 
SUBPROGRAMME 3 — ADVANCED 
INFORMATION PROCESSING 
This subprogramme is seeking means for 
improving the performance and efficiency of 
computing systems by making use of advances 
in four key areas, namely, knowledge engineer­
ing, including the development of knowledge 
acquisition, representation and manipulation 
techniques; external interfaces, dealing with 
the recognition, understanding and synthesis of 
signals; information and knowledge storage, 
these advances are the developments in data 
and knowledge bases as well as the techniques 
of access to these bases, and deals with archi­
tectural characteristics and physical properties 
of advanced storage devices; computer archi­
tecture, i.e. the development of new computer 
architectures and their associated programming 
environments where particular emphasis will be 
placed on the use of concurrency. 
SUBPROGRAMME 4 — OFFICE SYSTEMS 
The challenges facing office systems develop­
ment include understanding and supporting the 
tasks of office workers and not simply provid­
ing a technological update of traditional office 
functions, achieving improvements in man-
system interfaces that allow productive use of 
office systems by a wide range of office work­
ers, and the development of system oriented 
approaches to office problems. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/5 
The subprogramme has been divided into five 
areas: 
Office system science and human factors 
Advanced workstations 
Communication systems 
Advanced filing and retrieval systems 
Integrated office systems. 
SUBPROGRAMME 5— COMPUTER 
INTEGRATED MANUFACTURE 
The two main objectives of the CIM subpro­
gramme are: one, the creation in the Com­
munity of an environment in which multi-
vendor automated manufacturing systems can be 
implemented with the resulting integrated sys­
tem having minimum functional overlaps and 
maximum connectivity, and two, to support 
indivual work on selected subsystems, inter­
faces and tools whose development or refine­
ment is seen to be of strategic value to the 
Community industry, and whose design aims 
are consistent with the general architecture of 
the environment. 
Work in the subprogramme relates to the total 
requirements of manufacturing activities, from 
the planning and design stage to real-time con­
trol of production. It then includes computer-
aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineer­
ing (CAE), computer-aided manufacturing 
(CAM), flexible machining and assembly sys­
tems, robotics, testing and quality control. 
0.5. PROGRAMME EXECUTION AND 
INFRASTRUCTURE 
The Commission will manage and monitor the 
execution of the programme. 
It will see that the infrastructure needed for 
programme execution is set up. Part of this 
infrastructure is the information exchange sys­
tem (IES). Another part is the dissemination of 
results and reports and the acquisition of infor­
mation. A third part is concerned with the 
interrelationship between the R&D work and 
standardisation activities. 
The ESPRIT Information Exchange System 
(IES) serves as a management tool. The IES is 
an IT based data communications system for 
the exchange of information between separated 
participants in ESPRIT projects, their own 
managements and policy making bodies, and 
the Community and national administrations 
involved in programme or project management. A number of the research and development 
projects in ESPRIT will lay the scientific and 
technical foundations on which standardisation 
activities will be based later. Conversely, some 
demonstrations of the interworking of stan­
dards may require additional work; this work 
will be considered as part of the infrastructure. 
The work towards standardisation will be 
guided by the general IT standardisation policy 
established and not duplicate any of the exist­
ing organisations or actions. 
The dissemination of results of and informa­
tion acquisition for ESPRIT is an important 
element of ESPRIT. Its goals will be the quick 
application of research results from ESPRIT in 
the Community industry and to provide the 
best basis for the planning and management of 
the programme, and for project participants. 
For this purpose both classical mechanisms like 
publications or workshops or conferences and 
newer communication methods through elec­
tronic means, for instance the IES, will be used. 
0.6. TELECOMMUNICATIONS 
When the ESPRIT plans were originally drawn 
up, it was recognised that telecommunications 
formed an important part of information tech­
nology. However, the subject was not included 
per se at that time. 
In September 1983, the Commission prepared a 
communication to Council, demonstrating the 
increasing economic importance of telecom­
munications to the economic development of 
the Community, and putting forward actions in 
this field. The Commission was then asked to 
detail proposals for the six lines of action so 
identified in the action programme. 
The proposed second line of action recognises 
the key role of cooperative R&D, it calls for 
'cooperative R&D and worksharing at the 
pre-competitive stage of the ESPRIT'type'. 
Accordingly, the Commission initiated a Plan­
ning Exercise in Telecommunications (PET) in 
conjunction with major European companies 
and the national PTT laboratories. The aim was 
to enable proper assessment of the advantages 
that might stem from a Community approach 
in laying down the technical ground for a signi-
NoC 11/6 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
ficant implementation of Integrated Broadband 
Communication (IBC) by 1995 in the Com­
munity. 
As a result, a Commission proposal for an 
inventory of R & D requirements in tele-com­
munications, 'R&D in Advanced Communi­
cations Technologies in Europe (RACE)' is 
being made. The draft RACE workplan states 
that the work undertaken within ESPRIT must 
be taken into account. 
0.7. TYPES OF PROJECT 
Throughout the ESPRIT 1985 Workplan, a dis­
tinction is drawn between Type A and Type B 
projects. These are defined as follows: 
Type A Projects are projects that are indivi­
dually described in the workplan, with speci­
fied intermediate objectives. They usually 
require large resources, both human and finan­
cial, and considerable infrastructure with clear 
and constant perspectives. 
Type B projects are covered by 'research 
themes' which are indicative but do not form 
an exhaustive listing. They usually require 
smaller resources and are not as amenable to 
milestone management and review cycles as the 
larger projects. 
0.8. CURRENT STATE OF THE PROGRAMME 
This workplan specifies the work that will be 
open to proposals in 1985. It also describes 
work in progress in 1984 or likely to start before 
the 1985 call for proposals. The steps leading to 
this work were as follows: 
An advance notice for participation in the main 
ESPRIT Programme was published on 
30 December 1983. The Council of Ministers 
approved the programme for an initial period 
of five years on 28 February, 1984. The 1984 
Workplan was published in the Official Journal 
of the European Communities. 
A first call for proposals for the main pro­
gramme was issued on 21 March 1984. Nearly 
450 proposals were received in response and 
were evaluated during May and June 1984. A 
shortlist was selected in July 1984 for detailed negotiations and final approval. In addition, 
much of the work carried out under the earlier 
Pilot Phase is expected to combine with the 
main programme. A direct consequence in the 
1985 workplan is the inclusion of descriptions 
of projects already underway. 
A further call for proposals should be expected 
in early 1985 and at proposal time about 
120 projects will be underway already. 
For participation in the IES development and 
services, a call for proposals was published on 
14 July 1984 and has produced 25 responses 
which have been evaluated. 
0.9. WORKPLAN COVERAGE AND INTENDED 
RESPONSE 
The 1985 Workplan covers the period 1985-
1989. This is sufficiently long to cover the dura­
tion of the longer projects. However, informa­
tion technology is rapidly evolving and there­
fore the R&D objectives may well have to be 
modified in the course of yearly revisions. 
Accordingly, the intermediate objectives that 
are set out in this Workplan are less specific 
towards the end of the planning period. 
Such intermediate objectives are, however, 
necessary to provide the framework and refer­
ence for evaluation, proper management, and 
further refinements. They have been introduced 
in the workplan as the best current estimate of 
how the overall objectives of the project may 
be achieved. They are indicators and checks 
against which concrete proposals for projects 
will be examined. Intermediate objectives shall, 
however, not be regarded as legally mandatory 
in the sense that proposals having perfectly 
acceptable end objectives should not have to 
be rejected only because they may have been 
designed to rest on different intermediate 
objectives than the ones proposed here. 
Within each of the separate subject areas of 
ESPRIT there exist programmes of work which 
may depend on skills, techniques or technolo­
gies which are being developed within one or 
more of the other subject areas. 
In individual cases this may lead to specific 
milestones in one area replacing identified 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/7 
demonstrators in another area. Conversely 
demonstrations might be requested or started as 
a separate entitity in such cases. 
Under each R&D topic, the workplan indi­
cates where proposals for A-type and B-type 
projects are expected. To aid the presentation, 
the descriptions of current work are typographi­
cally distinguished. These descriptions are 
located under the most appropriate heading, 
but it should be realized that in some cases pro­
jects formulated in response to previous work-
plans overlap the subject boundaries currently 
used. There are some areas for which no new 
proposals are expected in 1985. 
The best information on these projects avail­
able at the time of writing has been incorpor­
ated in the 1985 Workplan. However, it should 
be noted that at the time this workplan was 
drafted the Commission had not yet concluded 
final negotations on all this work and some 
modifications may prove necessary in some 
cases. 
A-type projects are part of an explicit plan 
deemed necessary for the success of ESPRIT. 
This means that in a given topic area all A-type 
projects taken together must address the total­
ity of the goals set for that area in the work-
plan. The evaluation and selection process of 
new A-type proposals is directed to achieve 
such coverage. 
As B-type projects are covered by research 
themes, the response shall not necessarily be 
limited to the items explicitly mentioned. Pro­
posals addressing additional related topics will 
be considered as well, and also (as a general 
rule) B-type proposals in support of the work 
described under the A-type headings will be 
considered. In spite of being less constrained 
by topic or result to be achieved, B-type propo­
sals must have, however, a strong industrial 
orientation and lead to industrially exploitable 
results. As regards topics or subdivisions thereof that 
are already addressed by A-type work and for 
which no new A-type work is invited this year, 
it must be noted that, if for any reason, the 
existing work should not be continued as 
expected, other major proposals addressing the 
same area may then be considered again. 
A-projects or B-themes for which no proposals 
or no satisfactory proposals are received, or 
areas in which existing work is discontinued for 
some reason, will be considered again for inclu­
sion in the workplan for the subsequent year. 
0.10. RESOURCES BREAKDOWN 
Allocation of the budget between the five sub-
programmes will be a function of the work 
envisaged in the 1985 Workplan and of the 
final allocation of resources to the projects 
started in 1984. However, as an indication of a 
top-down allocation, the desired overall bal­
ance between the subprogrammes can be used. 
Since the 1984 proposals for Software Technol­
ogy (subprogramme 2) fell significantly short of 
expectations, some allowance is made for this 
by allocating more resources for 1985. 
The overall workplan breakdown of resources 
for each subprogramme is also subject to modi­
fication in the light of further technological 
evolution in the world. In particular, in the 
light of the industry response to calls for propo­
sals, it must be possible to transfer resources 
between the various subprogrammes — after all 
the partitioning of ESPRIT into five areas is a 
management convenience and is not intrinsic 
to the nature of the work. It must be stressed 
that all subprogrammes are very heavily interre­
lated. 
The resulting approximate distribution of effort 
to be supported, in man years expended each 
of the next five years, is as follows: 
NoC 11/8 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. Subprogramme 
Microelectronics 
Software Technology 
AIP 
Office Systems 
C1M 
Total 2 
400 
340 
370 
320 
200 
1 630 Prog 
3 
440 
390 
420 
360 
230 
1840 ramme 
4 
430 
400 
420 
340 
230 
1 820 year 
5 
430 
400 
420 
320 
200 
1 770 6 
440 
440 
440 
360 
240 
1920 
SUBPROGRAMME 1 
ADVANCED MICROELECTRONICS 
1. The major thrust of this subprogramme is to develop the key enabling technolo­
gies of silicon MOS and bipolar and GaAs with the associated CAD. These each have 
different merits for specific IT applications; these are listed in the table below. 
MOS 
Bipolar 
GaAs Speed 
*** 
**** 
$$*£* Power 
***** 
** 
**** Drive capab. 
* 
***** 
** Cost 
per funct. 
***** 
*** 
* Level 
of integr. 
***** 
*** 
* Market 
size 
***** 
*** 
* 
When associated with CAD, CAM and manufactur­
ing methods, these will produce by 1988 a soundly 
based 1 u.m industrial capability in a number of 
European sites, with substantial progress towards 
submicron capability. Also in place will be the 
necessary CAD to design VLSI circuits which use 
these technologies. 
2. Communication with the other subprogrammes 
must be enhanced to ensure rapid definition of the 
required VLSI demonstrator circuits, their design 
and fabrication, funded from those subprogrammes. 
3. The supply of scientific and engineering person­
nel trained in the specific skills of microelectronic 
process technology and design must be increased. 4. Support for longer range work, including opto­
electronics, is provided for at a reasonable level. 
5. Over and above the work started as part of the 
1984 workplan there is a need for special attention 
to critical areas of technology and techniques. These 
are addressed in the new area 1.9 and include pack­
aging, dry etching, resist technology, conductors, 
insulators and epitaxy. 
In R&D areas 1.1 and 1.2 the MOS and bipolar 
process programmes have been retained for infor­
mation though they have now been addressed by the 
projects listed. These programmes were structured as 
large integral projects rather than separate 1 u,m and 
submicron projects. This has been done in the inter-
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/9 
ests of efficiency, as each level of technology builds 
on the knowledge gained from preceding levels. 
Many aspects of a given process require continuous 
improvement, e.g. oxide quality in MOS, to meet the 
demands of each successive development of greater 
circuit complexity and high performance. This con­
tinuity of effort would be lost by having separate 
projects at 1 urn and submicron levels. 
A new aspect of the strategy is the identification of 
the need for major coherent projects focussed as 
specific aspects of technology, supporting the main 
programmes where relevant. It is highly desirable 
that equipment suppliers be involved. These pro­
jects are identified in area 1.9. 
The importance of CAD for VLSI to the overall suc­
cess of ESPRIT cannot be over-emphasized. Given 
good technology and outstanding CAD, the highly 
innovative European industry will be able to com­
pete successfully in world markets. 
A total of some 13 CAD projects, involving about 
650 man-years between 1983 and 1987, supported 
under the Microelectronics Regulation (EEC) 
3744/81 and the Esprit pilot phase are already 
underway. In addition a new project is being 
launched this year (1984). The integration of the 
results of this work and extension to cover the 
design of several million component circuits for a 
wide range of applications is a major task. 
Following detailed consideration of the work cur­
rently underway, the need for a major thrust forward 
in CAD has been identified and this is included in 
the workplan in R & D area 1.3. 
There are far more organizations with a direct 
interest and competence in the CAD field than is 
the case with VLSI technology. The projects pro­
posed here must be planned with sufficient flexibil­
ity to deal with the complex technical and organiza­
tional issues involved. The ESPRIT Information 
Exchange System will be a valuable aid in the area. 
Computer control of manufacturing VLSI is seen as 
an essential part of the programme, not just a means 
of increasing manufacturing efficiency. The reduc­
tion in feature size and layer thickness place increas­
ing demands on process control in a situation where 
the final device parameters are dependent on a lar­
ger number of variables. The minimization of 
human handling and an attack on the sources of 
yield limiting contamination are critical. For a given level of contamination, yield falls rapidly as feature 
size is reduced. The submicron MOS and bipolar 
projects will address computer-aided manufacturing 
aspects where appropriate. These could also be 
addressed under appropriate type B projects. 
R&D area 1.1: Submicron MOS (type A) 
Description 
The requirement is to develop all the individual pro­
cess steps such as lithography, etching, doping, etc., 
to achieve submicron feature size in MOS. The tar­
get is a process capable of making several million 
components per chip of logic and memory. It is 
envisaged that below about 0,7 u,m other than opti­
cal lithography tools will be used. Process and dev­
ice modelling will be included. To achieve these 
goals the critical techniques need to be developed. 
These are common to areas 1.1 and 1.2 and are 
addressed in 1.9. 
Prerequisites 
— experience with state-of-the-art processing; 
— experience on advanced process steps; 
— availability of functioning Computer Aided 
Design/Computer Aided Test (CAD/CAT) 
tools; 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— choice of process (CMOS or mixed C- and 
NMOS) and of design methodology; 
— choice of optical lithography equipment; 
— establishment of process steps. 
Year 2: 
— optimization of individual process steps; 
— establishment of preliminary design rules; 
— characterization of process steps; 
— start research on novel process and structures 
for submicron technology. 
NoC 11/10 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
* 18th month: design and evaluation of test vehicle 
of more than 1 000 transistors based 
on 1 |im design rules with a pitch 
(metal plus spacing) of 3 urn. 
Year 3 : 
— demonstration of feasibility with a 1 urn feature 
size, 0,5 million components circuit. The target 
is a figure of merit of 50 femto-joules and 1 ns 
delay time; 
— evaluation of novel steps (gate material, isola­
tion, interconnection etc.) 
— evaluation of equipment for submicron process­
ing. 
* 36th month: first samples of demonstration cir­
cuit with 0,5 million transistors, 
1 u.m design rules, with data on 
figure of merit and delay time. 
Year 4: 
— choice of submicron lithography equipment; 
— flow chart of a 0,7 jim process including design 
rules. 
* 48th month: statistical data on homogeneity on a 
slice and yield for 1 u.m design rules; 
and test vehicule with more than 
1 000 transistors with 0,7 u,m design 
rules and a pitch of 2 urn. 
Year 5: 
— evaluation of the 0,5 urn process; 
— demonstration of the process feasibility; 
— design of a demonstration circuit with more 
than 1 000 000 components, a figure of merit of 
50 femto-joules and 1 ns gate delay. 
* 60th month: first samples of circuits with more 
than 1 000 000 transistors, 0,7 um 
design rules, with data on figure of 
merit and delay time. Activities dependent on 1.1 
VLSI microelectronics for information technology. 
1.1.1. 'SOI Materials and Processing towards 3D 
Integration'(Ref. 245: A/84) 
The aim of this cooperative research is to study and 
develop new silicon technologies necessary for three 
dimensional integration. This 3 D approach will offer 
the possibility of higher density integration, higher 
speed of operation and multifunctional signal process­
ing. Three main technological steps will be explored: 
a) the growth of SOI active layers having electronic 
properties needed for the realisation of high 
quality devices and circuits 
b) the stacking of two active levels in a way that 
avoids any degradation of already built devices 
c) the single level SOI processing for the fabrication 
of individual components and for their connec­
tion; the development of a complete process incor­
porating two active layers. 
1.1.2. 'Submicron CMOS Technology' (Ref 554: 
A/84) 
The project aims at developing the necessary building 
blocks for a 0.5 /am CMOS process, primarily dedi­
cated to the production of high speed digital circuits. 
In order to allow the programme to proceed with the 
best chances of success, two main phases have been 
identified and organised: the first refers to an inter­
mediate step at the 1.0 jum level; the second to the 
final 0.5 jum CMOS family. At the end of the project, 
the IC companies of the consortium will have, in their 
pilot lines, the building blocks of a CMOS process 
capable of realising IC's with 0.5 jum features. 
1.1.3. 'Physical-chemical Characterisation of Silicon 
Oxynitrides in Relation to their Electronic 
Properties' (Ref. 369: B/84) 
The aim of the project is firstly to establish the rela­
tion between the physico-chemical and the electrical 
properties of silicon oxynitride film and secondly the 
relation between the physico-chemical properties and 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/11 
the growth parameters. This research will be carried 
out in view of the likely applications of silicon oxyni-
trides in i.e. technology, for instance in MNOS based 
non-volatile memories and in submicron MOS dev­
ices. 
No further A-type proposals are expected for area 
1.1. 
Specific B type proposals are sought in support of 
the above projects in the areas identified in section 
1.9. Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— 1 urn technology : establish activity on process 
steps, circuit structures, modelling. Evaluate 
and choose critical equipment; 
— first choice of process and circuit structures. 
* 12th month: initial process design; evaluation 
and choose critical equipment. 
R&D Area 1.2: Submicron bipolar (type A) 
Description 
The overall objective is to develop specific bipolar 
submicron process steps, leading to a complete pro­
cessing sequence for very high performance ICs. 
To realize this objective the following developments 
are included in the project area: 
— overall circuit concepts which must evolve 
together with the technology; 
— a vertical device structure appropriate to sub­
micron lithography; 
— a convenient multilayer interconnection tech­
nology; 
— a suitable contact and multilayer interconnec­
tion technology; 
— appropriate high dissipation, high pin count, 
electrically matched leads, packages; 
— process and device modelling. 
In addition the project area specifically depends on 
the availability of critical techniques covered by 
area 1.9. Year 2: 
— preliminary optimization of process steps; 
— design rules at 1 urn; 
— start design of demonstrator chips; 
— start research on novel processes and structures 
for submicron technology. 
* 24th month: establish final design rules at 1 urn. 
Year 3: 
— demonstration of 1 (im process feasibility for 
10/20 Kgates, 100 ps gate delay chips; 
— start work on multilayer 2 um pitch in addition 
to pilot project continuation; 
— continue research on submicron technology; 
— preliminary design rules for 0,7 urn structures. 
* 36th month: demonstrate 1 um 10/20 Kgates, 
100 ps gate delay circuits. 
Prerequisites 
— experience with VLSI and advanced silicon pro­
cessing; availability of CAD/CAT tools. 
Activities dependent on 1.2 
Fast VLSI microelectronics for information technol­
ogy-Year 4: 
— start design of demonstrator chip at 0,7 um; 
— optimization of submicron process steps; 
— choice of critical equipment; 
— yield improvement of 1 um demonstrator. 
NoC 11/12 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
* 48th month: establish final design rules for 
0,7 u.m structures. 
Year 5: 
— demonstration of 0,7 u.m process feasibility for 
20/50 Kgates, 50 ps gate delay chips. 
* 60th month: Availability of first samples of 20/ 
50 Kgate circuits in 0,7 u.m process. 
1.2.1. 'Submicron Bipolar Technology — /' 
(Ref. 243: A/84) 
The overall objective of this programme is to develop 
specific bipolar submicron process steps leading to 
complete processing sequences for the manufacture of 
very high performance integrated circuits. At the end 
of a five year period, the process feasibility for sub­
micron structures will be demonstrated on a large test 
chip. 
1.2.2. 'Submicron Bipolar Technology — //' 
(Ref. 281: A/84) 
The goal of the project is the development of a bipolar 
technology for high-speed data processing products 
(gate delay smaller than 100 ps, power delay product 
smaller than 0,1 pJ, design rules smaller than 1 /urn). 
To realise this, specific processes for component isola­
tion, thin epi-layers, E-B structures, Schottky diodes, 
poly Si-resistors, multilayer-metallisation in excess of 
4 layers, adequate packaging and testing techniques 
have to be developed. The feasibility, performance, 
yield and reliability will be demonstrated with specific 
test vehicles especially a gate array with 10 Kgates/ 
Chip. The gate delay of less than 100 ps will be gradu­
ally attained in three steps: 200, 100, less than 100ps. 
No further A-type proposals are expected in 
area 1.2. 
Specific B type proposals are sought in support of 
the above projects in the areas identified in sec­
tion 1.9. R&D area 1.3: CAD 
GLOBAL OBJECTIVES 
(a) to develop advanced CAD techniques to man­
age the ever increasing circuit complexities; 
(b) to provide a capability for complex VLSI design 
widely accessible to the EEC IT community. 
The overall aim is to develop within a common 
framework an integrated set of portable tools 
capable of handling VLSI circuits containing up 
to several million components. 
This should: 
— provide a fast response, user friendly facility 
that is readily adaptable to changes in tech­
nology; 
— allow designers to achieve a rapid turn-
round of valid and testable designs and 
associated test information; 
— be easily adaptable to changes in tech­
nology; 
— provide facilities for reliability and perform­
ance optimization of circuits; 
— include methodologies of cell-based design 
and libraries of adaptable building blocks; 
— assimilate relevant results of CAD projects 
under Regulation (EEC) 3744/81. 
Strategy 
(a) A positive attempt should be made to encourage 
the emergence of an overall CAD infrastructure 
such that the majority of tools developed under 
existing programmes together with future tools 
can be combined to provide an integrated 
widely accessible tool capability. 
(b) As far as possible, complex demonstrator chips 
will be used as a focus for each stage of the pro­
ject. 
(c) Device and process modelling is not considered 
as part of the CAD projects and is included in 
the projects concerned with the development of 
new VLSI processes (see areas 1.1 and 1.2); but 
compatability with CAD is required. 
(d) Care should be taken to promote cooperative 
development between universities, industrial 
i^im^ Official journal of the European communities ^oC^HBl^ 
groups and research institutions in order to 
transfer l^nowdrow and make C^AIO available to 
abroader community. 
^ C^are will be taken to interface with^ support and 
employ the results of otner^^^t^lT activities. 
t^D the application of knowledge engineering tech 
niques to C^AtO should be emphasised. 
^ dedicated C^AtO hardware should be incorpor 
ated where appropriate. 
^^or^ro^t^tot^t^u^t^d 
V^orlo is required immediately in four key project 
areas. Lhe aim is to simultaneously develop tools 
and techniques wnile promoting significant move 
ments towards the adoption of a common frame 
worle 
Amajor difficulty arises out of the need to incorpor 
ate the results ofcurrentf^uro projects wbich are in 
most cases difficult to quantify.The integration pro^ 
ject will adress this issue and provide guidelines for 
future projects, l^ew projects must define in adv 
ance their quantified goals and limitations in suffi 
cient detail to allow them to be fully evaluated. 
A fifth area covers smaller typeBprojectsofaspe 
culative and novel nature. 
^uch work needs to be done in the C^AfO area, 
towing to the limited resources available the follow 
ing projects have been carefully selected as those 
most likely to havealasting and long term impact 
on Luropean effectiveness. 
Prereo^^te^ 
— knowledge ofthe design process 
— AccesstoresultsandtoolsdevelopedinC^AfO 
and specifically under microelectronics ^egula 
tion^7^B^l and the esprit projects 
— ^perience in algorithms used inVL^t design 
— Technologies and demonstrator chips in the 
order oflOmillion transistors 1.^1. oS^^^^r^^^r^c^^^^ 
The requirement is for a wide and representative 
groupoftOesign Automation ^tOA^tooldevelopers 
to meet and jointly recommend the mechanisms and 
framework for better integration and wider accessi 
bility of European tSAtO tools. 
Theprojectwillproduceregular study reportsand 
will relate its findings to some specific programming 
worl^ to support integration and linking ofe^isting 
and ^uro supported tools^ and to define a frame 
worl^ of standardsfor future work. 
The studies must take into account worldwide 
development (eg electronic Poesign Interchange 
format — f^lol^ in information technology and 
PoAsystem architectures. 
Vearl^ 
Problems ofbridging existing ^urotoolsm^chniques 
for integrations impact of networks and distributed 
data. 
Vear^B 
recommend data and portability standards^ impact 
of special tOA^B^^ardware^guidelines for devel 
opersoftOAtools. 
tVlilestones^ 
a^ Integration oftools and systems currently under 
development intoafirst generation system. 
b^ POefinition of framework of standards for future 
work. 
^ A major review of achievements andareassess^ 
ment of the balance of the work to be made at 
this time. 
Vear^andVear^^ 
extensions to incorporate impact of new develops 
ments in PoA hardwares artificial intelligence and 
database technology. 
Vear^ 
complete the integrationofsecond generation sys 
tern and review existing standards. 
NoC 11/14 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
Milestones: 
a) Integration of advanced tools into second 
generation system. 
b) Review of existing standards with updates 
where appropriate. 
1.3.2. User interface project (type A) 
The objective is to promote more effective use and 
consistency of CAD tools from the user point of 
view. The work will be a combination of a wide 
ranging study and the practical adaptation of some 
existing programmes. 
Year 1 : 
Enhance the user interface aspects in the ongoing 
CAD system projects along the whole design pro­
cess: 
Important characteristics: 
— user friendliness 
— quick response time 
— portability 
— consistency 
Year 2: 
Investigate the links on communications between 
intelligent work stations and the central computing 
units: 
— Speed of transmission 
— Protocol of transmission 
— Partitioning of data and processes between 
work stations and computers 
Years 3 and 4: 
Study of man-machine interface with respect to 
CAD — new input/output techniques, for instance 
voice input (and see also other ESPRIT areas). 
1.3.3. Problems of very large scale integration 
(type A) 
The target is to develop new algorithms and archi­
tectures appropriate for VLSI circuits containing 
millions of transistors. The first step is to establish a 
formal understanding of the limits of the existing 
algorithms used today at different levels of the 
design process. It is known that for 90 % of CAD problems an 
increase in complexity beyond a certain limit 
requires new solutions and it is certain that in the 
future a lot of different approaches must be applied 
to the algorithms. 
The participants should combine joint studies and 
quantified evaluation with practical work on spe­
cific tools employing expert systems and special 
hardware that may support a range of DA problems. 
Year 1: 
Establishment of performance evaluation criteria 
especially with regard to: 
— Layout generation tools 
— Floor-planning tools 
— Functional design tools 
Year 2: 
Experiment with existing tools, AI systems and 
special hardware providing: 
— Limits in time-space complexity 
— Pathological cases 
Definition of a demonstrator system in which to 
make cooperative algorithmic tasks with AI tech­
niques and any necessary special purpose hardware. 
Years 3 and 4: 
Implementation of the system and demonstration 
on a 'difficult' and large problem. 
1.3.3.1. 'Description Language for VLSI' (Ref 42: 
A/83) 
This project will produce two new hierarchical IC 
design description languages for describing circuit net­
works and layouts. The main aim is to create a VLSI 
CAD infrastructure that aids in dramatically improv­
ing designer productivity and that allows for further 
development. 
1.3.3.2. 'Advanced Algorithms, Architecture and 
Layout Techniques for VLSI Dedicated 
Signal Processing' (Ref. 97: A/83) 
This project addresses the development of CAD tools 
and advanced CMOS circuit design techniques for 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/15 
digital signal processing chips for bit-serial and mixed 
bit-serial-parallel or parallel architectures. 
1.3.3.3. 'High Yield High Reliability Ultra-large 
Scale Integration System Through Reconfi-
gurability'(Ref. 244: B/84) 
Highly reliable VLSI can be achieved by introducing 
redundancy into a chip so that faulty cells or elements 
can be tolerated. But this area increase may lead to a 
yield decrease. The introduction of redundancy is pro­
posed with the objectives of yield enhancement by 
means of end-of-manufacturing reconfiguration and 
the fault tolerance by means of on-line reconfigura­
tion. Expertise in silicon yield analysis involving an 
understanding of failure mechanisms and their distri­
bution, architectural strategies for partitioning, imple­
menting redundancy and maintaining testability, sili­
con design methodologies enhanced to meet the above 
requirements, and specific manufacturing techniques 
to support the required physical restructuring and 
addressing the special requirements in testing and 
packaging are required for successful completion of 
the project. The project will terminate in a demonstra­
tion chip and the technology supported will be state of 
the art CMOS with adequate multilayer interconnec­
tions. 
Additional type A proposals are invited. 
1.3.4. High level Design tools (type A) 
The requirement is to develop a set of integrated 
design tools for high-level design (specification, 
synthesis and verification) with a high degree of 
technology independence. These target designs are 
of the scale of ten million components per chip 
which may contain both memory and logic. The 
tools should assist the designer in partitioning a sys­
tem into sub-systems, and in allocating the func­
tions for implementation in hardware or software. 
Implementation details such as testability and lay­
out must be addressed. The problems of mixed ana­
logue digital designs should also be addressed. 
Year 1: Design overall tool set 
Year 2: Start implementation of tool set 
Year 3: Complete implementation of tool set Year 4: Test and demonstrate tool set on multiple 
chip sub-systems with logic, memory and 
analogue functions. 
1.3.4.1. 'High Level CAD Design Systems for Inter­
active Layout and Design' (Ref. 10: A/83) 
The objective of this project is to define and demon­
strate the CAD system for the Design and Layout of 
VLSI integrated circuits, from the initial specification 
to the masks. Circuit complexity up to 1 000 000 tran­
sistors will be addressed. Reduced design times are 
the overall aim. 
Additional type A proposals are invited. 
1.3.5. Specific novel design tools (type B) 
A number of small and highly innovative projects 
will be supported. There is a very wide range of pos­
sible topics covering the design of large scale VLSI 
circuits. 
In particular, projects that address design problems 
in the following areas are invited: 
— Very high speed VLSI circuits (e.g. 50 pico 
seconds) 
— Wafer Scale Integration 
— Fault tolerance for high yield 
— Parallel architectures (e.g. systolic arrays) 
— Specific technologies (e.g. GaAs) 
— Special purpose hardware for CAD. 
1.3.6. Design and Characterisation of Cells (Type A) 
The objective is to provide cells which can be used 
to evaluate the silicon technologies and the CAD 
tools developed under ESPRIT in the context of 
working circuits. It is not intended to provide an 
exhaustive library of cells but to develop a proven 
methodology for the rapid design and characterisa­
tion of cells. One essential input is device modelling 
information from the process research projects. 
NoC 11/16 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
Three categories of cells are included: 
1. Primitive cells 
2. Parameterised cells 
3. Fixed cells 
to include both analogue and digital functions. 
For each cell there should be descriptions at the lay­
out, functional and electrical level, with complete 
information for simulation and parameter extrac­
tion. The intention is to provide a minimal range of 
cells for each of the technologies. Each cell will be 
fully simulated and characterised. 
Year 1: 
Select provisional standards and develop basic cell 
design methodology. 
Year 2: 
Develop primitive cell library and techniques for 
parameterisation. 
Year 3: 
Design parameterised and fixed cells. 
Year 4: 
Characterisation and demonstration in representa­
tive circuits. 
Note: During the course of the project appropriate 
standards will be implemented as soon as 
they become available. 
R&D area 1.4: Compound semiconductor integrated 
circuits 
Description 
Integrated digital circuits in III-V compound semi­
conductor materials offer potential speed and/or 
speed power product advantages over silicon cir­
cuits because of higher electron mobility. Technol­
ogy complexity is many years behind silicon and 
considerable materials and process research are 
necessary. Because of the increasing market for 
high-speed, low-power circuits many problems need 
to be tackled. 
The technology encompasses GaAs circuits based 
on Field Effect Transistors (FET's) as well as GaAs/GaAlAs heterojunction structures using high 
electron mobility transistors (HEMT) or the hetero­
junction bipolar transistors (HJBT's). Basic research 
is required in materials preparation, ion implanta­
tion, and IC process technologies. 
Remark: The achievement of the objectives of this 
programme needs very large resources which may 
not be available within the framework of ESPRIT. 
On the other hand these objectives represent a mini­
mum target to remain competitive. Consequently 
complementary funding mechanisms and/or less 
ambitious programmes have to be accepted. 
Prerequisites 
— source of suitable substrate materials; 
— CAD facilities; 
— suitable laboratory and experienced team; 
— capability for Ion implantation; 
— and/or Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE); 
— and/or Metal Organic Chemical Vapour Depos­
ition (MOCVD) epitaxial growth; 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— Main emphasis on development of GaAs IC 
fabrication process on 2" wafers arriving at sub-
micron features with special concern for re­
producibility and yield. 
— Optimize materials growth and fabricate experi-
menal HEMT's and HJBT's in the GaAs/ 
GaAlAs system. 
* 12th month: demonstrate feasibility of MESFET 
based circuits with 1 000 gates and 
gate delay (tpd) of less than 100 ps. 
— Demonstrate basic HJBT and/or HEMT cir­
cuits (other than ring oscillators). 
Year 2: 
— Continue work with main emphasis on GaAs IC 
fabrication process involving submicron fea­
tures with special concern for reproduceability 
and yield. Establish 3" process capability. 
— Continue research into optimization of HEMT 
and/or HJBT IC's; 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/17 
* 24th month: demonstrate at least 1 K memory 
(less than 1 ns access time, less than 
500 mW dissipation) and/or equiva­
lent complexity circuits. 
Demonstrate feasibility of 100 gates HEMT and/or 
HJBT circuits. 
Year 3: 
— carry out yield and reliability improvement 
exercise on basic GaAs IC process; 
— improve basic process steps for a GaAs/GaAlAs 
IC process based on the HEMT or bipolar tran­
sistor. 
— determine applicability of HJBT/HEMT for 
digital IC eg for a fast 8-bit processor; 
* 36th month: evaluate yield on a demonstrator cir­
cuit of 1 k or equivalent complexity, 
on at least 10 wafers. 
Demonstrate feasibility of 1 K 
HEMT memory and/or comparable 
HJBT circuit. 
Comparison of various technologies 
(if possible with the same circuit for 
each technology). Decision for 
selecting one out of them. 
Year 4: 
— improve and consolidate the selected process; 
— fabricate experimental ICs and improve yield; 
— develop circuits for fast 8-bit processor. 
* 48th month: demonstrate 16 K memory (or equi­
valent) in the selected technology. 
Year 5: 
— Increase complexity; 
— Design and fabricate other complex state-of-
the-art ICs. 
* 60th month: Demonstrate large circuit of 10 to 
20 Kgates complexity, gate delay of 
less than 50 ps with figure of merit less than 100 femtojoules. This 
demonstrator could be a 16 Kmem-
ory with an access time in the 
order of few nanoseconds or it could 
be defined during year 3 to fulfill 
needs of other ESPRIT areas (spe­
cially high speed data bus) or of 
telecommunication industry (signal 
processing circuits for instance). 
1.4.1. 'Compound Semiconductor Materials and 
Integrated Circuits — /' (Ref. 232: A/84) 
The overall objective of this programme is to establish 
gallium arsenide digital integrated circuit technologies 
using the GaAs MESFET, high electron mobility tran­
sistors (HEMT/TEGFET) and heterojunction bipolar 
transistors (HBT) as the active circuit elements. These 
circuits will be configured to enable the speed and 
power advantages of GaAs over silicon to be suitably 
demonstrated. 
1.4.2. 'Compound Semiconductor Materials and 
Integrated Circuits — //' (Ref. 522: A/84) 
The general objective of the research programme is to 
develop advanced aspects of GaAs digital integrated 
circuit process technology and associated expertise to 
enable the fabrication of fast, high performance digi­
tal circuits. Whole IC fabrication is not considered to 
be pre-competitive. Demonstrator digital ICs will be 
developed to evaluate the performance of the various 
logic circuit technologies. 
1.4.3. 'CAD Methods for Analog GaAs Monolithic 
ICs'(Ref.255:B/84) 
The major emphasis of the research programme is the 
development of a full CAD library of theoretical 
models and experimental data for passive elements 
and active components required for the design of 
GaAs analog ICs. The work starts by deriving physi­
cal models and equivalent circuits for different types 
of MESFET and passive elements both for lumped 
and distributed approaches. The next step is CAD of 
groups of passive and active devices for the integrated 
implementation of elementary functions. Here besides 
NoC 11/18 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
circuit analysis, coupling between adjacent elements 
and thermal distribution will also be simulated. In the 
successive phase, analog IC's defined as high level 
functional blocks have to be considered with special 
analysis programs. This final CAD program includes 
package effect evaluation and error sensitivity ana­
lysis. Interactive optimisation will be organised in a 
user-oriented, transferable package. The project starts 
with C and X band investigation to be extended to 
18 GHz. The CAD capability will be proofed with dif­
ferent GaAs IC demonstrators, including submicron 
dimension devices. 
Additional type A and B proposals are invited. 
R&D Area 1.5: Optoelectronics 
Description 
Optoelectronic devices will be increasingly required 
for telecoms transmission, intra- and extra-computer 
connections, ultra wide band image processing and 
switching. Future generations of mono-mode com­
munications systems may use coherent detection 
and multi-channel wavelength multiplexing and 
may be phase modulated. This will provide 
improved performance and be compatible with inte­
grated optical logic. It will allow processing, com­
bining and routing at very high speeds. In semicon­
ductor form it will also be compatible with III-V 
integrated circuits providing a fast electrical inter­
face. 
Remark: The achievement of the objectives of this 
programme needs very large resources which may 
not be available within the framework of ESPRIT. 
On the other hand these objectives represent a mini­
mum target to remain competitive. Consequently 
complementary funding mechanisms and/or less 
ambitious programmes have to be accepted. 
Prerequisite 
— source of suitable substrate materials; 
— suitable laboratory and experienced team; 
— capability in epitaxial growth. 
This programme is not aimed at optics based com­
puters but rather at providing components and sub­
systems for large bit rate transmissions. The two 
approaches are: a) Integrated electronic and optical components 
on the same chip: 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— optimize materials growth and layer structures; 
— integrate a photodetector with a front-end 
amplifying component; 
— work on laser drivers in InP based materials; 
— work on the development of an InP based IC 
technology, compatible with its optoelectronics. 
* 12th month: demonstrate a monolithic photode­
tector with internal amplification. 
Year 2: 
— compare (both experimentally and by model­
ling) hybrid and monolithic integration for 
receiver module; 
— continue to develop the InP based IC technol­
ogy; 
— develop isolation and interconnection tech­
niques on InP based materials. 
* 24th month: demonstrate a monolithically inte­
grated receiver with bandwidth 
greater than or equal to 2.5 GHz. 
Year 3: 
— compare hybrid and monolithic integration of 
transmitter module; 
— fabricate an integrated transmitter. 
* 36th month: demonstrate an integrated transmit­
ter with a bandwidth greater than 
2.5 GHz. 
After year 3, further optimisations of receiver, trans­
mitter, and perhaps also repeaters have to take into 
account the progress and needs of the telecommuni­
cations industry and of the other ESPRIT areas. 
b) Wavelength multiplexing (WDM) with inte­
grated optics: 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— Optimization of epitaxial growth for lasers, 
detectors and waveguides; 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/19 
— evaluate electron-beam and holographic prod­
uced gratings; 
— demonstrate Distributed Feedback (DFB) laser. 
* 12th month: demonstration of DFB laser with 
threshold current lower than 50 mA; 
demonstration of waveguide fed 
photodetector; low loss monolithic 
waveguide (smaller than 1 dB/cm). 
Year 2: 
— optimize DFB laser for direct modulation at 
high frequency; 
— fabricate 2 buried heterostructure (BH) lasers at 
different wavelength on the same chip; 
* 24th month: demonstration of 2.5 GHz band­
width modulators in semiconduc­
tors. 
Year 3: 
— monolithic integration of 2 DFB lasers emitting 
at two different wavelengths: 
— optimization of external modulators on semi­
conductors materials; 
— fabricate demultiplexing detectors; 
* 36th month: demonstrate an integrated transmit­
ter with a bandwidth greater than 
2.5 GHz. 
Year 4: 
— Integration of 2 DFB lasers together with an 
optical multiplexer; 
— improve demultiplexing photodiode. 
* 48th month: demonstrate integrated WDM trans­
mitter and receiver modules. 
At this point, some inputs from other ESPRIT areas 
and telecommunications industry are needed to 
implement a demonstration link at a several gigabit 
rate. 
1.5.1. 'Integrated Optoelectronic Devices for Very 
High Bit Rate Optical Fibre Transmission 
Systems' (Ref. 263: A/84) 
The general objective of the research programme is to 
significantly increase the data rate in information 
transmission systems, by the use of high performance 
devices and with a variety of multiplexing techniques, 
mainly with the use of different wavelengths. In the 
first three years, activity will be focussed on achieving 
and utilising single mode discrete functions suitable 
for subsequent hybrid and monolithic integration. Full 
hybrid integration will be worked on in year three and 
four. The work on these materials will be oriented towards reproducible growth of high quality, high 
homogeneity, large area heterostructures suitable for 
lasers with low threshold current density and well con­
trolled wavelength, for photodetectors with low resi­
dual doping level and for waveguides with low losses. 
1.5.2. 'Technology for InP Based Integrated Opto­
electronic Circuits' (Ref. 546: A/84) 
This programme is aimed at the development of the 
technology needed for the fabrication of the electronic 
devices in a form which can be integrated with the opt­
ical devices. A range of devices will be investigated 
and compared for use in a range of functions. As a 
result of the importance of longer wavelength opera­
tion all the work will be on InP-based semiconductor 
compounds. A very important potential benefit of the 
programme is that the materials to be studied are 
expected to have very high performance in conven­
tional electronic circuits. Thus the programme may 
lead to improved electronic functions as well as sophis­
ticated opto-electronic circuits. 
1.5.3. 'Optical Interconnect for VLSI and High Bit 
Rate ICY (Ref. 380: B/84) 
This speculative research programme is undertaken to 
investigate the application of optical interconnection 
to reduce the package pin count and electro magnetic 
interference in VLSI and high speed integrated cir­
cuits and in sub-assemblies containing these compo­
nents. The complete programme has a four year dura­
tion. During the first year design and study work will 
be undertaken. Activity levels will be higher in the 
second and third years during which the main experi­
mental work will be undertaken. In the final year, 
demonstration devices will be completed, design and 
performance predictions finalised, and specific appli­
cations explored. 
1.5.4. 'Molecular Engineering for Optoelectronics' 
(Ref. 443: B/84) 
The aim of the project is the development of new 
organic electro-optic and nonlinear optical materials. 
There is an increasing requirement for such materials 
in the rapidly expanding fields of integrated optics 
and optical communications. The target of the project 
is to produce novel materials for the fabrication of 
devices utilising linear electro-optical effects, second-
order frequency mixing effects and third-order effects. 
Further A-type (and B-type) proposals are expected. 
R&D area 1.6: Advanced Display Technologies 
In many product areas eg workstations, electronic 
office equipment etc. there is a need for new 
NoC 11/20 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
advanced display systems to replace and supersede 
the conventional CRT. Such displays would need to 
be of large size (A4 and above) and of medium to 
high definition. Colour capability would also be 
desireable/necessary. 
Many approaches are currently being investigated. 
The problems of multiplexing, defect minimisation, 
materials, etc. become greater with increasing dis­
play size and definition. A clear identification of the 
specific problem issues and a definition of the opti­
mum technological strategy for Europe to make an 
impact in this area is required. Such an initiative 
must link closely with national activities in this area. 
A technology definition project in which major 
existing community practitioners would combine 
their knowledge and experience is proposed. This 
project would be of 12 to 18 months duration and 
would prepare the way for a significant co-ordinated 
European approach in this area. The expected 
results in this project would be reflected in a study 
report to be completed between months 12 and 14 
whose recommendations would be supported by 
one or more demonstrators to be completed by 
month 18. 
1.6.1. 'Materials and Technologies for High Mobil­
ity TFTs for LC Display Bus Drivers' (Ref 
491:B/84) 
In current practice, the peripheral driver circuits for 
active matrix liquid crystal displays consist of external 
IC-chips. This project proposes to develop thin film 
materials and technologies for column- and line-bus 
drivers to replace the external IC-chips. The main task 
will be to develop a low temperature deposition process 
for the semiconductor thin film material compatible 
with the glass substrates used for the LC-display. The 
main material suggested is polycrystalline silicon, 
deposited in a high power glow discharge process. 
Furthermore elementary Thin Film Transistor (TFT) 
circuits suitable for bus driver shift registers will be 
developed and investigated and Driver prototypes of 
short length shall be combined with LC-matrix display 
and tested. 
Proposals are invited in area 1.6 as outlined above. 
1.7. — (number not used) R&D area 1.8: General Type B Research Themes 
This area covers B-type research themes not already 
identified in the microelectronics areas 1.1 to 1.6. 
These themes must of course be relevant to the 
objectives of the microelectronics subprogramme, 
and have a high intrinsic value in themselves. 
Note: Since this research area is very wide ranging 
in its scope no detailed programme will be given in 
this document. In each case, however, type B propo­
sals will be expected to provide closely measureable 
yearly targets against which progress can be 
measured. 
1.8.1. 'Investigation of all aspects of the Intercon­
nection of High Pin Count Integrated Cir­
cuits ' (Ref 199 — 544: B/83-84) 
This project has the following aims: 
1. The development of alternative methods of con­
necting the integrated circuit to its interconnect 
medium. 
2. The development of large area high density inter­
connect using multilayer polymer techniques. 
3. The development of reasonably large area ultra 
high density interconnect based upon a combina­
tion of thick film dielectrics and additive base 
metal electroplating methods. 
It is the aim to realise all interconnect systems with 
just two layers, thereby achieving low cost through 
reduced handling and inexpensive materials. All parts 
of the project are designed to make optimum use of 
the packages being developed on the complementary 
programme 1.9.1. 
1.8.2. 'Plasma Deposition Technology for Magnetic 
Recording Thin Film Media'(Ref 334: B/84) 
The objective of the project is to develop deposition 
technologies which combine the superior technical 
qualities of the thin film media with the high deposi­
tion rates required for industrial production. The goal 
of the project is to increase the thin film deposition 
rate by a significant factor. 
Additional B-type research themes are invited. A 
non exclusive list of candidate topics for such pro­
posals include: 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/21 
— advanced physical analysis techniques 
— sensors and transducers 
— new technologies and techniques for advanced 
information storage 
— new inorganic and organic materials. 
R&D area 1.9: Projects in Support of more than one 
Microelectronic Area 
Description 
This area covers all those projects (A- or B-type) 
which support more than one of the major area 1.1 
to 1.6. Such projects cannot be assigned to a specific 
area but, unlike area 1.8, they are directly connected 
to the main thrusts of the subprogramme. 
Also this area represents a significant thrust to 
develop the technologies and the techniques 
required to help achieve the major goals of these 
areas 1.1 to 1.6, and to look forward beyond the 
early stages of these projects to the sub-micron final 
goals. 
1.9.1. 'Advanced Interconnect for VLSI' (Ref. 14: 
B/83) 
This project relates to the on-silicon interconnect prob­
lem. It will deal with multilayer and submicron geo­
metries and will address the relevant materials tech­
nology and other related problems. Reliability, life-
test and yield programmes will form an integral part 
of the project. (Off-chip interconnect is the subject of 
project 1.8.1). 
1.9.2. 'Automatic Design Validation of Integrated 
Circuits Using E-beam (Ref. 271: B/84) 
The project seeks to develop a methodology for the 
automatic design errors diagnosis of VLSI devices 
based on the observability facility given by an electron 
beam system, connection to the CAD environment, 
pattern recognition to automatically position the 
E-beam, global methodology, possibly based on expert 
systems to define the diagnostic strategy, new hard­ware circuitry to enhance the EBTperformance. The 
areas of computer control of the electron beam sys­
tem, interfacing to CAD software, identification of 
circuit elements, methodology for design error diagno­
sis, test pattern generation for electron beam debug­
ging, design for electron beam testability, and electron 
beam equipment development, will be addressed in 
order to achieve this overall objective. 
1.9.3. 'Assessment of Silicon MBE Layers' (Ref. 
305: B/84) 
This project is divided into three parts: 
1. Growth of silicon layers by molecular beam epi­
taxy (MBE). 
2. Continuing in situ measurement of process char­
acteristics. 
3. Implementing and developing techniques for the 
characterisation of MBE layers. This information 
will then be used to optimise growth conditions. 
It is planned that four specific developmental tasks be 
undertaken on four specific techniques. The remainder 
of the programme will be concerned with the applica­
tion of existing techniques and the interpretation of 
the totality of the results so obtained. 
1.9.4. 'Silicon-on-insulator Systems Combined with 
Low Temperature' (Ref. 370: B/84) 
In the project a number of techniques will be used and 
combined in order to obtain good quality single crys­
tal layers with thicknesses varying between 0.5 /urn 
and 50 fim for a variety of applications. These relate 
to both silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and to SOS (sili­
con-on-sapphire) for high performance integrated cir­
cuits, and also for the provision of alternatives to the 
currently used cumbersome dielectric isolation (DI) 
processing. 
1.9.5. 'A High Performance CMOS Bipolar Process 
for VLSI Circuits'(Ref. 412: A/84) 
This project aims at the development of a VLSI tech­
nology which combines, on a single chip, MOS cir­
cuitry of the highest density presently obtainable, with 
bipolar circuitry of similar density, but better suited to 
specific tasks, in particular, the interfacing with exter­
nal equipment. In the project the main effort will fall 
on the technological side: development of methods 
NoC 11/22 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
which allow both bipolar and MOS transistors to be 
made in compatible process steps, and this down to 
dimensions comparable to those presently obtained in 
MOS-only technology. In parallel with this technolog­
ical work design methods have to be developed for the 
specific type of circuitry envisaged, along with a study 
to determine, for various types of application, the most 
appropriate division of subsystems between the two 
circuit technologies. 
1.9.6. 'Improvement of Yield and Performance of 
ICs by Design Centering'(Ref 456: B/84) 
This project will apply the new method of Design Cen­
tering to optimise the performance of ICs. An already 
existing program for design centering and a program 
for the improvement of the circuit performance will be 
improved and adapted in the special problems occur-
ing in the design of VLSI-circuits. The program-parts 
to be developed should include schematic input, output 
of relevant results and an improvement of the search 
strategy in order to cut down CPU-time eventually by 
increasing storage requirements. The program should 
be easy to handle and will finally be tested with var­
ious ICs provided by the companies. 
1.9.7. 'Substrates for CMOS VLSI Technology' 
(Ref. 509: B/84) 
Part 1: To set up an intrinsic gettering (IG) process 
for wafers with medium high oxygen concentration. 
The process should be independent of the type, p or n, 
of the substrate and should be able to produce: 
— a highly defective bulk region 
— a defect-free denuded zone 
A thickness of this zone around 10-20 /urn is identified 
as an optimum compromise for several factors (leak­
age current, insensitivity to latch up and soft error). 
Part 2: to characterise epi wafers with diameter 4 and 
6 inches. The thickness of the epilayer should be in the 
range 5-10/urn, both for p+ and n+ substrates. 
This thickness range is suitable for submicron CMOS. 
Finally, IG and epi process should eventually match to have intrinsically-gettered, low leakage epiwafers for 
submicron CMOS devices insensitive to soft errors. 
1.9.8. 'Quantum Semiconductor Devices' (Ref. 514: 
B/84) 
It is planned to 
1. explore device structures where the carriers are 
controlled within and between layers by electric 
fields imposed by implanted/diffused regions, or 
by specially configurated gate structures (e.g. sub­
micron pitch interdigitatedfingers), and 
2. support this programme with theoretical studies of 
basic semiconductor physics and of electronic and 
optoelectronic effects in novel structures. 
1.9.9. 'Dopant Profiling for Submicron Structures' 
(Ref. 519: B/84) 
The aim of this project is to realise the capabilities for 
the accurate determination of shallow dopant profiles 
as used in submicron devices. To achieve this the 
development of one electrical technique, i.e. spreading 
resistance, is proposed together with an intercompa-
rison of this technique with two other non-electrical 
methods, i.e. Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry 
(SIMS) and Rutherford Back Scattering (RBS). The 
primary emphasis of the project will be put on the 
development and use of the spreading resistance tech­
nique with the other techniques being used primarily 
for comparison. A major by-product of this approach 
will be the data enabling a better understanding of 
diffusion kinetics to be obtained. In addition the work 
will concentrate on profiling Boron Phosphorus, 
Arsenic and Antimony and will also involve the use of 
and assessment of novel annealing methods such as 
strip heater and flashlamp annealing. 
1.9.10. 'High Resolution Plasma Etching in Semi­
conductor Technology-Fundamentals, Pro­
cessing and Equipment' (Ref. 574: B/84) 
It is widely recognised within the electronics industry 
that plasma etching will play a vital role in achieving 
submicron technology both in silicon and III/V semi­
conductor systems. However, much remains to be 
done to understand the complex chemistry and physics 
involved by applying suitable diagnostic methods. 
Until this is accomplished the full potential of plasma 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/23 
etching will not be realised. The overall programme is 
necessarily interactive and brings together centres of 
expertise in plasma chemistry and physics, instrument 
manufacturers and a supplier of chemicals to the elec­
tronics industry. Collectively they possess a unique 
combination of knowledge and facilities which will 
assure success in this broadly based programme. 
To achieve the programme goals a series of signifi­
cant projects is required. In particular to achieve 
processing at feature sizes of 0.5 um and below the 
following project areas are identified, and the deliv­
erables of these proposals should be aligned with 
the 1.1 and 1.2 programmes 
(a) 0.5 um lithography with production throughput 
and associated resist development which should 
be compatible with dry etching processes 
(b) anisotropic etching of wafers up to 150 u,m with 
0.5 um feature sizes (Reactive Ion Etching -RIE, 
Reactive Ion-Beam Etching-RIBE, etc.) 
(c) Process techniques enabling redundancy for 
very large area integrated circuits 
(d) Modelling of processes and devices including 
experimental verification. 
Additional proposals for B-type Research Themes 
are invited. The following lists are indicative of suit­
able topics but are not exclusive. Candidate subjects 
related to VLSI include: 
— Semiconductor processing materials 
— Resist technology 
— Plasma and Reactive Ion Processing 
— Ion Implantation 
— Photo-assisted deposition technology 
— Rapid Thermal processing of layers (E-beam, 
Laser, Heat pulse, etc.) 
— Metallization: Silicide conductors, novel mater­
ials, novel processing methods) 
— Organic insulators — High Speed on-wafer testing 
— Advanced Packaging Techniques 
— high speed, materials, etc. 
— Device and Process modelling 
— Automated manufacturing and control. 
Candidate B-type topics supporting areas 1.4 and 
1.5 include: 
Crystal growth of large InP and GaAs single 
crystals 
Modelling optical elements 
Device modelling for GaAs 
Specific CAD for III — V integrated circuits 
Basic technological processes for 
— material assessment 
— ion implantation and anneal 
— dry etching techniques 
— dielectric and insulators 
reliability 
specific equipment 
In addition a wide ranging type B programme is to 
be encouraged, seeking to support new and promis­
ing techniques across the whole microelectronics 
area as defined by the identified major project area. 
— Lithography (Photo-, Electron-, X-ray-, Laser-, 
Ion-, etc.) 
— Various active elements on high mobility semi­
conducting materials 
— Device reliability and failure mechanisms 
— Novel compound semiconducting materials, 
new semiconductors and novel (eg stacked) 
devices using them 
— New display methods (for Flat Panel Displays 
— see Section 1.6). 
SUBPROGRAMME 2 
SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY 
1. Introduction 
The 1985 issue of the workplan for the ESPRIT 
Software Technology subprogramme is not only an 
adaptation of the 1984 issue to current technological insights and trends. It also represents an attempt to 
improve the workplan as an instrument for project 
evaluation and selection, and as the main technical 
guide to potential proposers. 
NoC 11/24 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
2. Objectives and rationale 
Software Technology is seen as one of the major 
enabling technologies of the IT industry. Software 
development is a part of the design process of sys­
tems and is expected to account for an increasingly 
large proportion of total system effort. Therefore, 
possession of highly efficient, cost-effective meth­
ods for the production of high quality, reliable soft­
ware will lead to more rapid introduction of new 
products and the reduction of total life-cycle costs. 
Europe must have free access to the best methods 
and tools and be at least equal to the rest of the 
world in their exploitation. 
At the present time Europe probably is on a par 
technically with US and Japan but most of its exper­
tise is in isolated centres of excellence and needs 
coordination and wider dissemination. 
The overall objective of the Software Technology 
subprogramme is to reach a stage where the 
development of information systems (i.e. products 
including hardware and software solutions) would 
have the characteristics of an industrial design pro­
cess and, to a larger extent, would be computer-
assisted. The information systems envisaged cover 
in principle the whole range of application areas. 
Specific mention should go to the following: distri­
buted systems (e.g. distributed databases), and real­
time and embedded systems. 
A major barrier to the introduction of existing and 
future methods is seen to be the lack of knowledge, 
by industrial middle management, of the benefits to 
be gained from these methods and the investment 
needed to introduce the methods (staff training, 
organizational changes, etc.). This is further 
re-inforced by the need to adopt a 'minimum-risk' 
policy for new industrial projects. 
A new class of projects has therefore been consid­
ered in Software Technology. These will involve the 
industrial use (not the development) of current 
state-of-the-art in software technology. These pro­
jects can start immediately. An essential part of pro­
ject proposals in this class must be analysis and dis­
semination of the effectiveness of the technology. 
The main activity is to assess software technology 
rather than to develop it (i.e. Case studies in usage). 
Some projects of this nature have been described 
under the R&D areas 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3; further propo­
sals are invited in section 2.4. 3. Description of the subprogramme 
In accordance with the accepted division of the soft­
ware development task into three key areas (see also 
1984 workplan), there are three main R&D areas in 
this subprogramme: 
Theories, methods, and tools (2.1) 
The activities in this area address the transition to 
an engineering approach to systems and software. A 
scenario is envisaged in which well-founded scien­
tifically-based methods are gradually adopted to 
replace ad hoc techniques currently in use. In addi­
tion, there will be work on more advanced 
approaches to information systems engineering. 
Management and industrial aspects (2.2) 
Projects in this area are intended to consolidate 
understanding of, and effective means of support 
for, the management and industrial aspects of soft­
ware projects. These aspects include the broader 
issues of the software product life cycle as it appears 
in the software and information systems industry. 
They also include issues concerned with software 
project management. 
Common environment (2.3) 
Projects in this area will develop a common envi­
ronment to be used: 
— as a primitive software development environ­
ment 
— as the basis for the development of a complete 
integrated software engineering environment. 
Other projects should provide the basis for the more 
advanced environments of the future. 
A fourth section of the subprogramme addresses the 
need for demonstration and evaluation projects. 
The projects to be executed under the ST subpro­
gramme are intended to secure the best competitive 
position of the European IT industry by the colla­
boration of research establishments, software tool-
makers and the industrial users. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/25 
In the overall activity cycle for improving the soft­
ware technology base three phases can be distin­
guished, each type of collaborator contributing in 
different proportions according to the phase, as fol­
lows: 
* Theoretical and empirical research 
The aim of projects in this phase is to promote a 
better understanding of the nature of the soft­
ware process within an economic context, and 
the underlying mathematical and computer-sci­
ence theory. The industrial applicability of the 
research will be confirmed by prototyping and 
pilot applications. 
Development of enabling technology 
Projects in this phase concern the development 
of industrially acceptable technology (typically 
methods and tools) which exploit the advanced 
in theoretical understanding. This phase 
requires the widest form of collaboration and 
the greatest mobilisation of resources, which in 
turn requires the adoption of a common tools 
architecture to ensure widespread applicability 
and inter-working of tools according to local 
requirements. 
* Industrial application 
This phase concerns the industrial application 
of the technology produced from the second 
phase. Collaboration in this phase is typically 
required to monitor the introduction of the tech­
nology, the impact it has on the nature of the 
software process, and the implications for future 
theoretical and empirical work. Thus the cycle 
begins again. 
Projects with the subprogramme will have character­
istics of one or more of the phases mentioned above 
and should therefore be assessed according to 
appropriate phase-oriented criteria, of which 
examples are given below. 
Theoretical and empirical research 
Novelty, advancing state of the art, increasing 
understanding of the software process, potential 
impact on software economics, etc. 
Development of enabling technology 
Industrial acceptability, actual impact on soft­
ware economics, interoperability with existing 
industrial practice, width of applicability, 
adaptability, conformity to standards, integra-
bility with other tool developments, etc. Industrial application 
Impact on future research, tools standards, 
training, and overall approach to changing the 
technology base of the relevant industry sector, 
generalizability and dissemination of results, 
etc. 
In order to maximize the industrial advantage of the 
development and introduction of technology, the 
ESPRIT Software Technology subprogramme 
includes not only the sponsorship of radically new 
approaches in the form of research which may take 
several years to mature. It also promotes the colla­
borative development of industrially acceptable 
technology, which exploits the existing knowledge 
as it matures. Within the constraint of remaining 
pre-competitive, it also promotes its introduction 
into industry and assesses its impact on the indus­
trial users. 
4. Current Work and new projects for 85 
The currently accepted notion is that industrialisa­
tion of the Software development task will be via 
the introduction of integrated project support envi­
ronments, i.e. collections of computer based tools 
and methods designed to work together and support 
all the technical and management aspects of the 
software process. The present ESPRIT work pro­
vides a good basic coverage of the tools and envi­
ronments but requires further supporting projects to 
fill out the detail and to provide additional coverage 
of high-risk areas. In addition, new work is neces­
sary in the following fields: 
— Systems projects (the integration of the hard­
ware and software design cycles). 
— Alternative and complementary methods of 
software development, e.g. prototyping and the 
application of Artificial Intelligence techniques. 
— Software methods and tools for small, highly 
critical software. 
— Metrics for software and for the software prod­
uction process. 
— Man-machine interaction. 
— Software engineering for broad application 
areas such as CIM and AIP. 
— Evaluation projects to assess the real problems 
and the real benefits of introducing the new 
technology. 
The workplan also contains work on Ada-related 
methods and tools, as well as on suitable environ-
NoC 11/26 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
ments for the development, maintenance and eval­
uation of distributed databases, in order to round 
out the work now foreseen for the extension of the 
Community multi-annual data processing pro­
gramme. 
R&D area 2.1: Theories, Methods and Tools 
Description 
The activities in this area address first of all the tran­
sition to an engineering approach to systems and 
software within the framework of current life-cycle 
views. A scenario is envisaged in which well-
founded scientifically-based methods are gradually 
adopted to replace ad hoc techniques currently in 
use. 
Industrial and academic collaboration is particu­
larly relevant to this area, since academic research­
ers in Europe have produced a significant theoreti­
cal base which should provide the foundations of 
improved systems and software engineering 
methods. 
One of these foundations is the work in the area of 
formal description. Because they adhere to well-
defined mathematical practice, formal descriptions 
allow the unambiguous, concise and clear specifica­
tion of a software product without constraining the 
implementation, and provide a good basis for such 
important concerns as functional analysis, verifica­
tion, simulation, education, automatic implementa­
tion and testing. 
The emphasis is on the development of improved 
methods for system construction. These methods 
must then be supported by integrated support tools. 
It is assumed here that the overall development 
approach, which the tools support, will employ mul­
tiple levels of representation with incremental verifi­
cation and validation. Where possible, tools may be 
provided by re-work or enhancement of existing 
software rather than by completely new develop­
ment. 
In this context it is important to distinguish short 
and long term concerns: 
— In the short term it is important to work towards 
unification and integration of the existing 
models and tools in software production. In this 
area the efforts will hopefully lower the threshold which still prevents even software 
engineers from using these tools. 
— In the longer term one will need to stress the 
view of the system as a whole, and especially 
unite the classically separated processes of soft­
ware production and hardware development. 
Thus profit can be drawn from the increased 
flexibility offered by the weakened borderline 
between hardware and software. (Consider the 
possibility offered by todays minicomputers to 
decide, depending on the actual needs, whether 
floating point arithmetic shall be done by soft­
ware or by hardware). 
With respect to the current phase-oriented models of 
the system development process, unification and 
upgrading of tools corresponding to individual 
phases and their sequencing is a more short-term 
concern, whereas the possibility to define new 
phases and/or a new sequencing of those is of more 
long-term interest. 
All efforts should contribute significantly to the 
reduction of life-cycle costs, particularly in the areas 
of testing and maintenance, through earlier error 
detection and removal, and the development of 
more reliable and higher quality systems. There is 
also a strong interdependence with the management 
activities described in area 2.2. Management meth­
ods must take account of improved systems and 
software development methods and, similarly, sys­
tem development methods must take account of 
management requirements. 
The sub-areas included are first of all 'System 
Oriented Approaches' (2.1.1), which stress the prob­
lems of developing complete systems (hardware and 
software), then 'Improving Current Software 
Development Approaches' (2.1.2), followed by 
'Advanced Software Development Approaches' 
(2.1.3), and finally 'Quality, Reliability, Conformity 
testing and demonstrating' (2.1.4). 
2.1.1. System Oriented Approaches 
Three main themes have been selected in this area: 
— Hardware/Software synergy 
— Requirements engineering. 
— Design of secure systems. 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/27 
2.1.1.1. Hardware/Software Synergy (Type A) 
Objectives 
(a) To develop common techniques, methods and 
tools for the whole (hardware and software) sys­
tem development process, e.g. design languages. In terdepen den cies 
Other projects in 2.1, CAD for VLSI (1.3), computer 
architectures (3.4). 
(b) To develop an integrated approach for modell­
ing the overall system (software behaviour, 
hardware performance, system utilization). This 
dynamic modelling must achieve cost-effective­
ness and adequacy of the system as a whole, 
matching historical data; system characteristics 
to be observed are compactness, response time, 
reproducibility, robustness, flexibility. 
(c) To enable automated transformation of formal 
specifications into silicon/software. 
(d) To develop test and evaluation strategies 
regarding the increased complexity of such sys­
tems, e.g. considering bugs and failures as 
decreasing functionality over the system life 
cycle. 2.1.1.2. Requirements Engineering (Type A) 
Objectives 
To develop a formal framework, methods and tools 
for the capture and description of system require­
ments. 
Rationale/Background 
This is a problem of fundamental importance to all 
IT product development. Failure to achieve effec­
tive requirements capture is at the root of many slips 
in project timescales and cost overrun. 
Rationale/Background 
There is a need for an integrated approach in the 
design of systems with the aim of being able to real­
ize each component in the best suited 'material'. 
This should lead to greater flexibility in design, and 
the possiblity of easier technology upgrade during 
product life. Technical Approach 
Interaction with the client/user of the system is 
essential to this issue. Therefore a variety of 
approaches may be required like natural language 
processing, audio-visual feedback (animation), in 
addition to formal methods which would be at the 
core of the solution. 
Technical Approach 
Integration of software methods and formalisms 
with those existing in hardware design. Analysis of 
the impact of non-functional requirements on sys­
tem design methods (tailoring to target characteris­
tics) such as fault tolerance. 
Intermediate objectives 
Year 3 — initial models and prototype tools 
Year 4 — test and evaluation strategies 
Year 5 — automated transformation of formal spe­
cification 
Year 6 — demonstrate technology developed and 
show applicability to complete system 
design. Intermediate objectives 
Year 2 — experiment with existing systems, draw 
up formal framework 
Year 3 — initial methods and prototype tools 
Year 5 — produce definitive methods and com­
plete corresponding tool support. 
Interdependencies 
With AIP (natural language, cognitive psychology). 
In view of the wide application area dependence, 
more than one project is expected to be launched. 
NoC 11/28 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
2.1.1.3. Public-domain techniques for systems 
integrity 
Objectives 
To develop methods and techniques for designing 
and implementing systems that must be safeguarded 
from stated infringements, e.g. because they deal 
with sensitive data, or because resource usage must 
be strictly controlled for accounting purposes. An 
important requirement is that the methods and tech­
niques must demonstrably provide the integrity pro­
perties. 
The techniques must be capable of dealing with a 
distributed network of users with multiple levels of 
allowed access. 
Rationale/Background 
Techniques based on non-public, proprietary meth­
ods may not be socially acceptable in many areas 
(public telecommunication, medical, banking,...). 
One of the main reasons why they may be unaccept­
able is the difficulty of assessing the real level of 
security they provide. Therefore, there is a need for 
techniques that do not rely on their not being 
public. 
Technical Approach 
Formal methods should be adopted so as to be able 
to guarantee or prove the required integrity proper­
ties of the system. Specific characteristics to be mea­
sured for purposes of demonstration will have to be 
quantified. 
In terdependencies 
Relations to software/hardware synergy (2.1.1.1) 
and software quality and reliability metrics (2.1.4). 
Proposals for B-type projects are invited, which may 
start in 1986. 
2.1.1.4. Other B-type Research Themes 
In the area of systems oriented approaches a num­
ber of smaller B-type projects are also envisaged in 
addition to the larger A and B-type projects men­
tioned above. An important one could be the study 
of technical means for effectively safeguarding the property rights in software (prevention of software 
piracy). Others are exemplified by design of soft­
ware for embedded micros, and methods for the 
development of distributed processor system. 
2.1.2. Improving Current Software Development 
Approaches 
This sub-area is intended to unify and improve 
methods and tools corresponding to existing formal­
isms, with the aim of encouraging their use on a 
wider scale. Furthermore, techniques and tools for 
enhancing the efficient production of software 
should be developed as a direct aid to removing the 
so-called applications backlog. 
In relation to the current orientation of the exten­
sion to the Community multi-annual data process­
ing programme, attention is drawn to the subjects of 
Ada-related methods and programming tools, as 
well as distributed database techniques. Work on 
these subjects would contribute to rounding out the 
purely development oriented work that can be sup­
ported under that programme. 
2.1.2.1. 'Rigorous Approach to Industrial Software 
Engineering (RAISE)'(Ref. 315: A/84) 
The project aims at building a complete systems 
development environment based on an enhanced ver­
sion of the VDM method. Present shortcomings of 
VDM will be corrected, a number of tools will be built 
(first in prototype form, then in production quality 
form), several industrial applications will be under­
taken, and training and educational material will be 
produced. 
2.1.2.2. 'Personal Workstation for Incremental 
Graphical Specification and Formal Imple­
mentation of Non-Sequential Systems 
(GRASPIN)'(Ref. 125: A/83) 
The project aims at a personal software development 
workstation for incremental Graphical Specification 
and stepwise formal Implementation of Nonsequential 
systems. The workstation is to comprise a tool set sup­
porting techniques for specification and documenta­
tion, testing and verification and coding simulation. 
GRASPIN is based on a well engineered merge of two 
widely accepted complementary methods: high-level 
Petri-net specifications of concurrent activities and 
axiomatic-algebraic specifications of abstract data 
types. Significant use is to be made of graphics and of 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/29 
concepts such as focussing techniques, multiple win­
dowing concepts, and simultaneous handling of differ­
ent contexts. 
2.1.2.3. Component-based software system construc­
tion (Type A) 
Objectives 
To develop techniques and tools for constructing 
software from re-usable software components. 
Rationale/Background 
It is expected that effective re-use of components 
will lead to dramatic improvements in software 
productivity for application software. 
Technical Approach 
Databases and knowledge bases for storage/ 
retrieval of component descriptions; the retrieval 
process has to be integrated with the design cycle, 
and this is as yet a major topic of R & D. 
Intermediate objectives 
Year 3 — produce prototype of database for 
storage/retrieval of component des­
criptions 
Year 4, 5 — incorporate results from AIP sub-pro­
gramme and formal techniques 
produce more advanced retrieval 
mechanism, extending complexity of 
component descriptions 
Year 6 — final integration of techniques and 
retrieval mechanisms. 
In terdependencies 
PCTE (2.3.1.1), SPMMS (2.2.1.2), formal specifica­
tion techniques for describing components, Know­
ledge-based systems. 
2.1.2.4. Software production by successive proto­
types (Type A) 
Objectives 
To derive methods, techniques and tools for devel­
oping software from a first prototype of a complete system to an implemented product by a succession 
of intermediate 'prototypes'. The aim is faster 
development than by 'classical life-cycle approach'. 
Rationale/Background 
Once a first prototype is available, which satisfies all 
the requirements, it is desirable to be able to syste­
matically transform it into a realistic product. 
Technical Approach 
Possibly: 
— successive replacement of components by ones 
better suiting the performance/reliability, etc; 
— transformation techniques; 
— simulation techniques; 
— non-imperative languages. 
Intermediate objectives 
Year 3 — establish methodology 
select more promising approaches 
Year 5 — develop relevant tools, and carry out 
demonstration designs. 
In terdependencies 
With 2.1.1.2 (requirements engineering), and 2.1.2.3 
(component-based system construction). 
2.1.2.5. 'Program Development by Specification and 
Transformation' (Ref 390: B/84) 
The objectives of this project are to develop a strict 
methodology for program development by transforma­
tions from formal specification. The transformation 
rules are proved correct 'once and for all', and their 
application, supported by software, would guarantee 
the development of programs correct in relation to spe­
cification. The use of Ada as a standard language, 
and specifications using annotations in Anna, or an 
Anna-like language, will ensure portabilities between 
APSE's. In order to support the use of these tools in a 
workstation, a collection of additional tools would be 
developed. 
NoC 11/30 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
2.1.2.6. 'Software Environment for the Design of 
Open Distributed Systems (SEDOS)' 
(Ref. 410: B/84) 
This three year project is based on the formal descrip­
tion techniques currently under development in the 
framework of OS I. It aims at providing pragmatic 
and stable formal description techniques, applications 
of these techniques to standards, verification tech­
niques, and a set of (prototype) tools to support the 
specification, verification, simulation, implementation 
and testing of OS I protocols and services in particular 
and open distributed systems in general. 
2.1.2.7. Other B-type Research Themes 
Proposals are invited in order to develop methods, 
tools and environment aspects around existing for­
malisms, which are not tackled by the other existing 
projects in area 2.1.2. They should in principle use 
PCTE (2.3.1.1) as an infrastructure. 
B-type projects under this heading are those 
intended to investigate and exploit specific formal­
isms; the formalism itself is the centre of interest. 
The workplan also provides for alternative emphasis 
in the following sections: 
— section 2.2.4, which considers the management 
implications of the use of the formalism; 
— section 2.3.3.1, where the aim is to generate an 
interactive programming environment from a 
characterisation of the formalism. 
2.1.3. Advanced Software Development Approaches 
The objectives are to investigate the possibility of 
integrating the rigour of the 'software engineering' 
approach and the flexibility of the experimental and 
'throwaway' style of software development exempli­
fied by knowledge processing work; also to provide 
facilities for rapid incorporation of future develop­
ments in different classes of languages. 
There is current work under this heading (see 2.1.3.1 
below) based on formal methods; other projects 
could be based on (i) the exploitation of Expert Sys­
tems approaches or (ii) non-imperative languages. 2.1.3.1. 'An Integrated Formal Approach to Indus­
trial Software Development (METEOR)' 
(Ref. 432: A/84) 
The basic goal of this project is the application of for­
mal methods to the process of developing industrial 
software. The current state of the art is not yet ripe for 
straightforward industrial exploitation and research 
work is needed on the integration of formal, yet not 
enough general, methods into a coherent and general 
method. In particular the project aims at integrating 
the object-based language paradigm, the algebraic 
approach to software specification, the relational 
approach and so-called formal heuristic. Industrial 
take-up, especially in the area of constructing real­
time distributed systems, is provided by the planned 
construction of prototype environments. 
2.1.3.2. 'Investigation of Performance Achievable 
with Highly Concurrent Interpretations of 
Functional Programs' (Ref. 302: B/84) 
The purpose of the project is the investigation of the 
performance implications of the highly concurrent 
hardware architectures which are becoming available, 
on the use of functional programming approach to 
application development. The project will analyse 
large functional programs developed in industrial and 
research establishments and study highly concurrent 
hardware architectures. The goal is to understand 
how the functional approach should be used in order 
to thoroughly exploit the potentials of highly concur­
rent hardware architecture. 
2.1.3.3. 'An Advanced Support Environment for 
Method Driven Development and Evolution 
of Packaged Software'(Ref. 510: B/84) 
This project will develop techniques for the formal def­
inition of methods used in the development of soft­
ware. The project focusses on one main idea, namely 
that the building of a support environment should be 
parameterised by methods expressed in a development 
language. It will seek to achieve understanding and 
formal modelling of: 
— the software construction process 
— the application domains 
— the target systems 
and would continue with the definition, implementa­
tion and evolution of a prototype environment for soft­
ware development based on formally defined methods. 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/31 
2.1.3.4. Expert-system based software systems con­
struction 
Objectives 
To investigate in detail the possible contribution of 
an extended expert system on the base of the col­
lected, existing know-how on system development, 
knowledge acquisition on system development and 
prototype-generation by direct derivation from spe­
cification. Demonstration of the applicability of this 
approach to e.g. supporting the user guidance for a 
part of the system development process. 
Rationale/Background 
A method-based user guidance taking account of 
the completeness and consistency of the phases of 
the system development process will reduce the 
users burden with mechanical and non productive 
work. Additionally the use of production rules 
would yield a dramatic reduction of redundant 
information and work. 
Interdepencies 
With AIP. 
Initially, B-type proposals are expected. This topic 
is expected to be the subject of A-type project work 
in later years of the programme. 
2.1.3.5. Development of system software using non-
imperative languages (Type A) 
Objectives 
(a) To design concrete formalisms and languages 
based on non-procedural and non-imperative 
approaches, such as found in the functional, 
applicative, logical and algebraic programming 
styles. 
(b) To build support systems and systems for rapid 
prototyping, integrating the various abstract 
concepts for describing distributed systems 
(temporal logic, data-flow languages, calculi of 
communicating systems). 
Rationale/Background 
In system programming, especially in the field of 
concurrent processes and networks, etc., the inher­ent non-determinism does not allow validation just 
by testing. Support by formal tools for specification, 
design and verification is badly needed for increas­
ing modularity, reliability and maintainability as 
well as reducing production cost. Recent research in 
this area shows that non-procedural and non-imper­
ative languages, such as found in functional, appli­
cative, logical and algebraic programming styles can 
make a considerable contribution in these areas. 
Intermediate objectives 
Year 2, 3 — design and validate formalisms 
Year 4 — produce initial support system 
Year 6 — build definitive support system 
Interdependencies 
Relations to prototyping projects (2.1.2), advanced 
environment work (2.3.3) and host/target issues 
(2.3.2). 
A-type proposals are expected in this area. Research 
in the areas of modularity associated with func­
tional and logic programming is in its early stages. 
Development of theories concerning modularity in 
this area is very important and may be the subject of 
'B' type proposals. 
2.1.3.6. Interactive formal program development 
At present there is a significant gulf between the for­
mal and structured style of program development, 
as advocated by the 'software engineering' com­
munity, and the experimental and throwaway style, 
as advocated typically by the AI community. B-type 
projects are invited that will investigate the possibil­
ity of drawing upon both styles to develop an 
approach which offers the rigour of the former and 
the flexibility of the latter. Significant issues include 
scoping appropriate to the task in hand, typing 
(strong typing, polymorphic typing, typeless lan­
guages), dynamic modification, and interfacing to 
both the hardware and the user. The differences 
between requirements for the two styles will have to 
be investigated carefully. 
NoC 11/32 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
2.1.3.7. Other B-type research themes 
Among the possible themes for B-type work in this 
area, the following can be explicitly mentioned: 
— investigation of the convergence between pro­
gramming languages and database manipula­
tion languages 
— new approaches in generation of system soft­
ware from (formal) descriptions. 
2.1.4. Quality, Reliability, Conformity testing and 
demonstrating 
This subject broadly concerns the properties by 
which a software product's quality may be charac­
terized and quantified and the means by which a 
software product's quality and reliability may be 
estimated and predicted. It further addresses the 
ways in which these and other properties of interest 
may be tested and demonstrated. 
Two main approaches to quality and reliability 
assurance can be considered, namely close control 
over the development process, and measurement 
and corrective action; in each case, the aim is to 
provide techniques and tools that will assist the 
assurance controls both pre- and post-production. 
Data collection and analysis should be addressed 
mainly from the short-term aspect (progress moni­
toring, analysis of error reports, etc., for individual 
projects). 
2.1.4.1. REQUEST: Reliability and Quality of 
European Software'(Ref. 300: A/84) 
This project aims to provide the techniques, tools and 
procedures sufficient to specify, predict, measure and 
assure the quality and reliability of computer soft­
ware. The areas of work include the following: 
— definition of the term 'quality' with respect to sev­
eral attributes, identification of methods of mea­
suring quality and investigation of the criteria for 
validity for those metrics, and construction of a 
quantitative model for the prediction of quality; 
— definition of reliability and identification of a 
model and tools to measure and predict reliabil­
ity, considering both software systems in general and also the special needs of systems in which 
ultra-high reliability is essential; 
— definition and provision of a data base for storage 
of measures of quality and reliability, and specifi­
cation of procedures for data collection and ana­
lysis; 
— analysis of the impact of using formal methods on 
reliability prediction and demonstration; 
— definition of a methodology for the certification of 
software products, providing criteria for the deliv­
ery of warranties. 
2.1.4.2. B-type Research Themes for product metrics 
B-type proposals are invited which could tackle 
aspects which are not covered by 2.1.4.1; e.g. per­
formance prediction. 
Objectives to meet are, e.g.: 
— cost effectiveness 
— control, tuning, calibration 
— efficiency 
— execution time for real time systems 
— accuracy 
— flexibility 
through observation, analysis and modelling. 
2.1.4.3. IT reference testing and demonstrating 
Objectives 
To develop techniques, methods and tools allowing 
for I.T. reference testing and demonstrating. 
This objective is multiple: 
— improving specification in order to facilitate the 
automatization of at least part of the process of 
testing 
— developing specific techniques methods and 
tools for conformity testing, quality and per­
formance testing, as well as usability testing. 
Rationale/Background 
In view of the increased usage of software in highly 
critical applications, as well as the gradual recogni­
tion of product liability for software, conformity to 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/33 
specification is becoming more and more an impor­
tant objective with the ever rising trade in software, 
quality and performance will be crucial for market 
viability. 
Technical approach 
Mostly formal specification, theorem proving, pro­
gram generators, and some AIP techniques (expert 
systems),... 
Interdependencies 
The results can be exploited in different sectors of 
the ESPRIT programme. 
B-type projects are expected in this area. 
R&D area 2.2: Management and Industrial Aspects 
This area is intended to consolidate understanding 
of, and effective means of support for, the manage­
ment and industrial aspects of system and software 
projects. These aspects include the broader issues of 
the software product life cycle as it appears in the 
software and information systems industry. They 
also include issues concerned with project manage­
ment in general, as it applies to the production of 
information systems. In both cases, the relationship 
of these issues to the technical aspects of the Soft­
ware Technology workplan (see 2.1.) must be 
addressed. Projects are indicated to develop solu­
tions to the proper integration of technical develop­
ments within the broad framework of the industrial 
process. Effective support for management roles is 
addressed by projects concerned with information 
control and visibility, with tools providing informa­
tion pertinent to management activities and with 
tools carrying out tasks necessary for management 
activities. Within an integrated process, the collec­
tion of data for use by management activities is seen 
as important and, again, relationships are seen with 
product metric activities in area 2.1.3. 
The sub-areas included are 'Software production 
and maintenance support' (2.2.1) which deals with 
the support system aspects, 'Industrialization 
aspects' (2.2.2) which addresses the introduction 
strategy, 'Development of Project Management tools' (2.2.3), and 'Management of advanced soft­
ware production' (2.2.4). 
2.2.1. Software production and maintenance support 
2.2.1.1. Short-term solutions to management sup­
port (Type A) 
Objectives 
(a) To produce a system providing integrated man­
agement capabilities with software engineering 
tools based on available or near term technol­
ogy-
(b) To evaluate through practical use the effective­
ness of such a management support system as 
representing the current, or very near term, state 
of the art. 
The management capabilities to be provided by 
such a system can include support for such 
activities as: 
* planning 
* project control 
* maintenance management 
* quality assurance 
* management database 
* project models. 
Rationale/Background 
The major feature of this item in the workplan is the 
provision of an integrated software management 
capability for evaluation by industrial projects. A 
major result is the outcome of such evaluation. 
The emphasis is on the provision of such a system to 
support the needs of Software management without 
relying on as yet uncompleted research. 
Technical Approach 
It is anticipated that the system will be provided by 
combining existing capabilities with perhaps some 
new production or development. This is essential to 
allow adequate possibilities for evaluation and 
demonstration. The means of demonstrating the 
effectiveness of the capabilities provided by the sys­
tem must be clearly stated to convince middle man­
agement of the benefits of using such an environ­
ment. 
NoC 11/34 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
Intermediate objectives 
Year 3 — produce initial system 
Year 5 — evaluate full system. 
Interdependencies 
There are no strong dependencies on other projects 
in the workplan. However, the results will be rel­
evant to other activities in the 2.2. area. 
2.2.1.2. 'Software Production and Maintenance 
Management Support (SPMMS)' (Ref. 282: 
A/84) 
The project aims at designing and implementing a sys­
tem supporting all management activities in the life 
cycle of software. One of the most important require­
ments the system is expected to fulfil is the adaptabil­
ity to different management methods. The project 
plans to reach this objective by building a basic 
generic SPMMS Kernel which should be easily cus­
tomizable. Customization will be provided by generic 
modules, and possibly by a rule based approach. 
2.2.1.3. Support for software production in special 
areas (Type A) 
Objectives 
This work addresses the issues which arise by the 
specific requirements of support and maintenance 
of Information Technology in special areas. Such 
areas include: 
* Software embedded as firmware for example in 
larger Hardware-Systems; 
* high volume Software products, for example in 
consumer products. 
For those areas, the objectives are to: 
(a) develop and apply quantitative management 
models of Software production and main­
tenance; 
(b) provide support for the major functions of Soft­
ware production and maintenance management 
for planning and control of Software projects 
and products and maintenance management. The application in these areas should be supported 
specifically on such aspects as: 
* high reliability assurance 
* extensive test facilities 
* attacking system (hardware/software trouble­
shooting) instead of merely software problems 
* enabling flexibility concerning changes in the 
surrounding components 
* ease of use for non-professional programmers, 
for example in smaller projects of mixed hard­
ware/software development 
* maintenance policies, especially in high volume 
markets. 
Technical Approach 
The project should gain some guidelines from the 
PCTE (2.3.1.1) and SPMMS (2.2.1.2) projects. 
Intermediate objectives 
Year 2 — develop models 
Year 4 — product initial support system apply and 
validate models 
Year 6 — build definitive support system. 
2.2.2. Industrialization aspects 
A main handicap to the usage of software technol­
ogy in industry is seen to be the difficulty of intro­
ducing the technology into the existing managerial 
and economic scene of a particular company. Little 
work has been done in methods and tools that suc­
cessfully take this problem into account. 
The issues raised cover a wide range of topics and 
overlap with other areas of the current ESPRIT pro­
gramme. In particular the work relies upon the eval­
uation of the efficiency of software technology 
methods. Although many of the projects being 
funded under ESPRIT have the requirement to be 
evaluated, it will be a considerable number of years 
before results are available. 
It is considered necessary to undertake earlier work 
to establish more firmly the experience gained to 
date by companies introducing software technology. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/35 
It is recognised that the confidentiality of such data 
is a major problem in this investigation. Proposals 
should indicate how such problems will be over­
come. 
2.2.2.1. Software Technology introduction strategies 
(Type A) 
Rationale/Background 
To introduce a given level of software technology to 
a company or a project requires a great deal of plan­
ning and, in many cases, a major investment in 
equipment and training. The necessary steps are not 
well identified or understood in the field of software 
technology. Similar problems arise however in the 
introduction of other forms of technology to indus­
try. It is important that software technology does 
not re-investigate, unnecessarily, problems for which 
well-tried solutions already exist. However, the 
introduction of software technology environments 
will have a major impact upon many of the activi­
ties of a company. It is necessary to have the issues 
involved in the introduction of this technology 
clearly identified and appropriate strategies and 
tools developed. 
Objectives 
(a) Develop models of the full software develop­
ment process, taking into account all peripheral 
activities such as management, personnel, train­
ing and investment strategies. These models 
should, as far as possible bring together existing 
models from other disciplines. 
(b) Develop and assess alternative strategies for the 
introduction of software technology into the 
commercial environment. The alternatives 
should include central software factory, decen­
tralised specialist units, workstation based stra­
tegies including incremental growth from a 
small number of units. 
(c) Produce case studies which support the model 
in a variety of industries. 
(d) Develop techniques and, where appropriate, 
tools to help industry adopt software tech­
nology. 
It is suggested that two A-type projects are launched 
covering different areas of industry together with a 
number of B-type projects covering particularly 
sub-models and addressing objectives (c) and (d). The A-type projects should complete tasks (a) and 
(b) within two years. Tasks (c) and (d) should be 
completed by year 4. B-type projects in support 
would be undertaken at all stages. 
Technical approach 
A wide variety of skills and techniques will be 
required to carry out these tasks. As far as possible 
quantitative models should be developed and for­
mal methods introduced where appropriate. 
Intermediate objectives 
Year 2, 3 — develop models 
assess strategies 
Year 3 — produce initial techniques and tools 
Year 4, 5 — complete case studies 
build final techniques and tools. 
Interdependencies 
Some links are seen with the Office Systems activity 
4.1.1 'Office Systems Analysis'. 
2.2.2.2. Evaluation of the problems experienced in 
adopting software technology 
Objectives/Programme 
— To gather data upon and draw conclusions from 
the experience of companies, working in a 
variety of different application areas, who have 
introduced, attempted to introduce, or are intro­
ducing software technology. 
— Specifically: 
* to attempt to identify why specific projects 
failed or succeeded; 
* to recommend a set of requirements which 
are needed to ensure the success of a soft­
ware systems development project. It must 
be assumed that these are beyond the nor­
mally accepted good practice for project 
management; 
* attempt to draw general conclusions regard­
ing successful strategies which have been 
adopted by companies; 
NoC 11/36 Official Journal of the European Communities 14.1.85 
to advise methods to assist in the evaluation 
of future projects. 
Since it is important to obtain early results in this 
field, it is suggested that a survey of existing experi­
ence should be complete within two years. New pro­
jects should be complete within 3 years. 
Technical approach Rationale/Background 
Many of the problems of system and software pro­
ject management are similar to those of any large, 
complex labour- intensive project. However, the 
innate flexibility of software development and the 
relative lack of methods of measuring its progress 
create special problems. It is particularly important 
that the issues involved in the management process 
are well understood. This indicates a need for a 
major project to create a set (or sets) of linked tools 
for one or more application areas. 
It will be necessary to identify companies who are 
prepared to share their experience. It is most likely 
that the most information will be obtained from 
consortia formed to introduce a specific technology 
to a group of companies. A satisfactory proposal for 
a survey of existing experience should also be con­
sidered. The specific technology is to be of a level 
currently available commercially, and not necessar­
ily 'state of the art'; the primary of the project is to 
evaluate the introduction of the technology not to 
introduce the most advanced technology available. 
However, the technology should be on an evolution 
path towards an integrated support environment or 
a methodology to be used in the future. Technical Approach 
Tools must be developed paying particular attention 
to the man-machine interface. It is particularly 
important that the design of the tools is based upon 
a extensive experience of the real problems of soft­
ware management, as well as industrial product 
management for the complete system. 
Interdependencies 
It is expected that at later stages of ESPRIT similar 
projects will be called for to evaluate transfer of 
environments produced by the ESPRIT programme. Must be closely linked to the SPMMS (2.2.1.2) and 
PCTE (2.3.1.1) projects. 
Both large and small B-type projects can be envis­
aged. 
Interdependencies 
There are links with the evaluation activities in other 
programme areas. 2.2.4. Management of advanced software production 
Objectives/Programme 
B-type proposals are expected. 
2.2.3. Development of Project Management Tools 
Objectives/Programme 
To develop specific tools for project management, 
in the form of linked sets of tools for specific appli­
cation areas. The tools should complement the work 
done by the SPMMS project (2.2.1.2) and use, wher­
ever possible, the PCTE (2.3.1.1) defined interfaces. The objectives of projects in this area are: 
(a) to establish the impact on the relationship 
between the technical aspects of software 
development and management features: the 
current way of managing resources (computing, 
human and others) taking into account time and 
volume constraints would be modified by the 
use of formal methods, techniques associated 
with AIP or the specific use of non-imperative 
languages; 
(b) to evaluate risks and help decision makers 
through the software product life cycle; 
(c) to demonstrate and evaluate advantages to the 
software product life-cycle of the use of the adv­
anced techniques; 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/37 
(d) to identify and satisfy management require­
ments which result from the use of the advanced 
techniques. Examples will include identification 
of appropriate metrics; 
(e) to achieve performance management and capa­
city management in the new setting. 
Rationale/Background 
Successful introduction of more advanced tech­
niques of software and information systems 
development requires that the relationship of these 
techniques to the requirements of industry and man­
agement be identified and appropriate integration 
activities pursued. 
Technical Approach 
The approach to be adopted will require identifica­
tion of the software product life cycle as it is 
affected by the use of advanced techniques and in 
particular the areas of concern to software manage­
ment. This might well be achieved by comparison 
with an industrial perception of the life cycle as it is 
with existing (i.e. non-advanced) software tech­
niques. 
In terdependencies 
There will be dependencies between a project in this 
area and projects developing advanced software 
techniques. Such projects are addressed in area 2.1. 
of the Software Technology workplan, including 
some which are already underway. There may also 
be activities on development techniques in the Adv­
anced Information Processing workplan. Cross fer­
tilization of ideas a project in this area and other 
projects in the 2.2. area might be beneficial. 
Rather large B-type proposals are invited in this 
area, each concentrating on a specific technique, 
particularly those developed by projects under 2.1. 
or under AIR In addition there could be smaller B 
projects investigating specific management aspects 
of advanced techniques (for example cost models of 
AIP based methods). The projects should start in 
1986. R&D area 2.3: Common Environment 
General introduction 
Within the sub-programme, the word 'environment' 
is used to cover a wide spectrum. At one extreme 
there are environments that aim to build a total 
environment to support a particular methodology. 
Such environments can e.g. be built on the basis of 
results produced by projects under section 2.1.2 of 
this workplan. All such total environments need to 
cover common issues like tool composition, object 
management, and user interface, and also to supply 
basic method-independent tools such as editors, 
document formatting, compilers, and graphics han­
dling. These common issues should be addressed by 
projects that build 'common environments' that can 
be used as bases for the total environment projects. 
This R&D area deals with such common issues. 
Projects in sub-area 2.3.1 will thus contribute to the 
development of a common environment to be used: 
— as a primitive software development environ­
ment; 
— as the basis for the development of a complete 
integrated software engineering environment. 
An area of major importance to European industry 
concerns the development of embedded systems. 
This necessitates use of special environments which 
can deal with host/target interworking. Projects in 
sub-area 2.3.2 address these issues. 
Projects in 2.3.3 should provide the basis for the 
more advanced environments of the future. 
The evolution to more advanced environments must 
consider both the application of AIP techniques to 
the problems of software engineering environments 
and the application of software engineering tech­
niques to the problems of environments suited to 
AIP project developments. For example, support for 
special life cycle models of AIP projects may be 
necessary. 
The more advanced environments might be 
NoC 11/38 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
expected to play an active rather than just a passive 
role in assisting the users. 
It is desirable that appropriate interfaces between 
these environments and the initial common environ­
ment are provided. 
2.3.1. Common Tool Environment 
Since multi-national development of software is a 
central feature of the whole ESPRIT programme, 
the common environment is an important building 
block for many projects promoting standardization 
of tool interfaces, functions and tool portability. 
There will be an early general publication of all 
interface definitions so that widespread exploitation 
of the environment is facilitated. 
The common environment will consist of an infra­
structure which provides the basic framework and a 
set of tools and components which will be of relev­
ance in all instances of the environment. In parti­
cular, the tools and components are intended to as­
sist the development of new tools and the con­
version and enhancement of existing tools, thus pro­
moting extension to a complete, flexible, integrated 
environment. 
2.3.1.1. 'A Basis for a Portable Common Tool Envi­
ronment (PCTE)'(Ref. 32: A/83) 
The project will provide a common base for Software 
Engineering Environments aimed at supporting Euro­
pean cooperative research and development and at 
fostering widespread dissemination and exploitation 
of emerging technologies, methods and tools. 
The project will exploit and advance state-of-the-art 
technologies in particular in the areas of User-Envi­
ronment interface and of management of Information 
bases: 
— The User Interface is a window system which 
draws on enhanced interaction facilities (bit-map 
display, mouse, menus) to shield both the user 
and the tool-writer from the knowledge of 
detailed aspects of the interaction protocol. 
— The Object Management System (OMS) is the 
information repository for the entire project life 
cycle. OMS is a true distributed DBMS imple­
menting a specialisation of the Binary Entity 
Relationship Attribute data model. Structural 
and semantic properties of the Information base 
can be incrementaly described via the OMS 
Schema mechanisms. The OMS provides a means of integrating tools and tool-sets in the framework 
of a hierarchy of Software Engineering Environ­
ments by supporting multiple levels of sub­
schemas. 
— PCTE distribution services provide a transparent 
access to processes and information items over 
personal workstations and servers connected in a 
Local Area Network through ISO-OS I standard 
communication services. 
For its wide availability UNIX is expected to play the 
role of the 'initial common environment' for the time 
being. PCTE implements a well suited strategy to sup­
port the easy migration from UNIX by providing a 
compatible emulation of the 'System Calls' functional 
level of UNIX System V. 
2.3.1.2. Common Environment Tools and General 
Services (Type A) 
Objectives 
This project concerns the construction of an inte­
grated tool set, based on PCTE, of interest to most 
professional software developers. 
It involves: 
(a) Definition of the tool set. 
(b) Acquisition and adaptation of existing tools to 
run on PCTE. 
(c) Development of new tools. 
Tool examples (not complete) 
* document handling 
* mail, bulletin, diary 
* database query 
* data dictionary 
* graphics editing 
* multilanguage interfacing 
* use of tool statistics collection and analysis. 
Rationale/Background 
The ultimate goal is to provide European industry 
with an advanced environment to be used for the 
development of reliable software products. It must 
be both immediately acceptable (i.e. at least as good 
as existing systems and providing an easy migration 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/39 
path from existing practices) and geared towards its 
later evolution. In addition, it must support distri­
buted project teams and promote standardized 
approaches to tool construction and interworking. 
This project is necessary to provide the essential 
minimum common tool set built on PCTE. 
The value of this project area to IT industry in 
Europe is very high since it enables project develop­
ment consistency by supporting multidisciplinary 
teams and subjects. 
Technical Approach 
The project is essentially a consolidation of existing 
techniques. As such the approach is straightforward. 
It is important that the basic facilities and languages 
supported by the PCTE are used in developing and 
adapting the tools. 
Intermediate objectives 
Year 2 — define tool set 
Year 2, 3 — acquire and adapt tools 
Year 3, 4 — develop new tools. 
A-type proposals are expected for this topic. A set of 
smaller B-type projects in this area is a possibility 
provided that they are carefully managed by an 
'overseer'. 
2.3.2. Host/Target Issues 
In the embedded systems area the host computer 
used for system development and the target com­
puter on which the system is to run are generally not 
the same. This division between host and target 
causes additional problems which the projects in 
this area attack. 
In embedded systems development one is often 
faced with the problem that the systems run on 
special hardware configurations (special I/O inter­
faces, no disk storage, etc....). Therefore it may be 
difficult or even impossible to use an existing oper­
ating system on the target. 
It should be possible to connect the Host and Target 
for development purposes as well as for mainte­
nance purposes. This may cause special problems with non-stop systems where it may be necessary to 
replace software components with new ones 'on the 
fly'. 
To attack these problems the concept of a target 
environment is introduced. The target environment 
acts as a framework for operating system and appli­
cation components and as an interface to the host. 
A number of B-type projects are envisaged covering 
amongst others the following themes: 
2.3.2.1. Implications for host and target architec­
tures : 
— external interfaces 
— non-stop considerations 
— application domain dependencies 
2.3.2.2. Host/Target connection: 
— protocole performance evaluation 
— remote debugging 
— target emulation 
— target maintenance 
— non-stop considerations 
— rescheduling techniques on synchronization 
points 
— testing of distributed target systems 
2.3.2.3. Relations to programming languages: 
— relations between target components and lan­
guage constructs 
— component structure 
2.3.3. Evolution to more advanced environments 
The emphasis in this area is on capturing the 
demands on the common environment that come 
from advanced' methodologies, their tool sets and 
their information structures. The urgent need for a 
common tool environment has meant that the cur­
rent work has, inevitably, taken a rather conserva­
tive approach. The PCTE is designed 'bottom-up' 
from the facilities it can offer rather than 'top down' 
from the uses to which it will be put. In order to 
avoid this in the next generation, projects in this 
area will explore various issues that have an impact 
on the architecture of the more advanced environ­
ments of the future. 
NoC 11/40 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
2.3.3.1. Generation of Interactive Programming 
Environments' (Ref. 348: B/84) 
The main objective of the project is to investigate the 
possibilities of automatically generating interactive 
programming environments from language specifica­
tions. Such an interactive environment will be gener­
ated from a complete syntactic and semantic charac­
terization of the formal language to be used. A proto­
type system will be designed and implemented. 
2.3.3.2. Advanced human interfacing 
Objectives 
To explore the impact and possible exploitation of 
advances in man-machine interfacing for the profes­
sional software developer. 
Technical Approach 
Relevant technology that may contribute to 
improved man-machine interaction in this area may 
include: 
— graphics 
— (pseudo) natural languages 
— voice and image processing 
— AI techniques. 
Interdependencies 
Is related to the human factors work described in 
subprogramme 4 (Office Systems). 
B-type proposals are expected. 
2.3.3.3. An experimental interactive environment 
Objectives/Programme 
There is a need for rapid deployment of an experi­
mental programming environment to support a for­
mal interactive style of program development 
(see 2.1.3.6). 
The environment must provide integrated support 
for existing languages from several classes, includ­
ing those geared to formal development (such as the 
functional languages with strong polymorphic typ­
ing), those geared to experimental interactive development (such as LISP and PROLOG), and the 
object oriented languages (such as SMALLTALK), 
as well as vectorial languages suitable e.g. for large 
scale scientific applications. 
Rationale/Background 
This work may provide the first environment for the 
'personal knowledge workstation'. As such it is a 
forerunner of the advanced interactive environ­
ments envisaged in the AIP subprogramme (3.5). 
Technical approach 
In view of the need for rapid deployment, serious 
consideration should be given to issues of re-use of 
existing developments. Communication and win­
dow-management facilities are to be provided by 
PCTE (2.3.1.1), and part of the results from 2.3.1.2 
may be integrated as well. 
Interdependencies 
With 2.1.3.6, 2.3.1.2 and 3.5. B-type proposals are 
expected. 
2.3.3.4. Flexible Environment Models to Support 
Advanced Methods and Tools 
Objectives/Programme 
To investigate the spectrum of possible future envi­
ronment philosophies and organisations. 
Issues may include: 
— Application domain implications 
— Uniform application writers' interface 
— New paradigms for software life cycle 
— Support for component reuse 
— Support for non-procedural knowledge 
— Support for highly parallel execution 
— Support for large scale scientific calculation 
— Support for the development, maintenance and 
evaluation of distributed databases 
— Management of projects 
— Support for distributed project teams 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/41 
— Use of non-imperative languages 
— Active rather than just passive roles 
— Requirements on schema tools/data dictionar­
ies, as derived from the need to integrate tools 
at the semantic level. 
Interdependencies 
With 2.1.3.6. 
Proposals for one or more B projects are invited to 
examine these issues which may have major impact 
on the structure of future environments. An example 
is the impact of software engineering environments 
on systems which support AIP developments. 
2.3.3.5. Knowledge-rich Environments to Support 
Software Engineering 
Objectives 
Provide a framework for environments which play 
an active rather than a passive role. 
The environment must provide the knowledge base 
management system necessary for software develop­
ment. 
Techniques and structures which permit an active 
role must be designed and implemented. 
An example of the way in which an active role may 
be played is in the retrieval of software components. 
For example a user may have defined his needs for­
mally. An active system can then search available 
component descriptions to find possible close 
matches to those needed. The system can then sug­
gest to the user a set of components which the user 
can then adapt to his specific requirements. 
Technical Approach 
This could be through advances in conventional 
database technology, for example via the use of AI 
techniques concerning knowledge representation, 
manipulation and consistency. 
Additional techniques such as search and inference 
could be applied. 
Proposals for B-type projects are invited to start in 
1986, and there may be an opportunity for a number of B projects leading to a consolidated A project in 
subsequent years. 
R&D area 2.4: Evaluation and demonstration 
projects 
As mentioned earlier, there is a significant barrier to 
the introduction of new methods and tools into 
industry. This can partially be overcome by promot­
ing evaluation and demonstration projects. Several 
projects and research themes mentioned in sections 
2.1 to 2.3 contain elements of evaluation and/or 
demonstration, in particular 2.1.4, 2.2.2 and 2.3.1. It 
is felt, however, that additional proposals should be 
encouraged whose main interest for the ESPRIT 
programme would be to contribute to the produc­
tion of reliable information (where possible in quan­
titative form) about the usability of software tech­
nology results in the widest sense in typical indus­
trial situations. Thus these projects could contribute 
also to the emergence of an empirics for software 
technology, which is seen to be lacking as yet. 
The intention is not to call for artificial projects 
solely to demonstrate or evaluate some particular 
approach, but rather to use real projects as an eval­
uation and demonstration vehicle. The financial 
support could then cover the additional costs that 
are incurred in performing the evaluation and 
demonstration role. In particular, it might cover 
training and familiarization overheads at the start of 
the project, and the preparation of reports and cri­
tiques of methods and tools for the benefit of the 
ESPRIT community as a whole. Acceptability of 
demonstration projects is conditional upon the 
production of such reports and critiques, which 
should be made freely available to interested 
parties. 
For an evaluation or demonstration project to be 
effective, it is paramount importance that the results 
to be produced for the ESPRIT programme are of 
relevance to a significant sector of the industry, both 
in terms of the application area that is envisaged, 
and of the working mode that is addressed. The 
representativeness of the project for a class of simi­
lar projects will therefore be a major factor. It is 
equally important that the results of such projects 
should be seen to be valid and conclusive; this 
requires, among other things, that the design and 
planning of the work should be evaluated from the 
perspective of the statistical theory of 'design of 
experiments'. 
The proposals expected under this heading may 
relate to any of the items indicated in section 2.1 to 
2.3 as forming part of the software technology. 
NoC 11/42 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
SUBPROGRAMME 3 
ADVANCED INFORMATION PROCESSING (AIP) 
Advanced Information Processing is central to 
future developments in Information Technology. 
The main theme concerns means for improving the 
effectiveness of computing systems. In order to 
achieve substantial progress, work in the following 
four key areas is needed: (vi) Focusing projects: the purpose of these is to act 
as demonstrators, and to provide foci for the 
interdisciplinary aspects of the work. Ideally 
these would span the ESPRIT subprogrammes 
to demonstrate the integration of the topics in a 
total systems environment. 
(i) Knowledge engineering: concerned with what 
the computing system processes. This area 
represents the change from processing of data 
to processing of information and knowledge. 
Particularly important is the development of 
knowledge acquisition, representation and 
manipulation techniques, also vital in improv­
ing human access to conventional databases. A major emphasis of the workplan is the implemen­
tation of practical systems. Much of the work pro­
posed will build on the existing technological bases, 
and is accordingly described on a stage by stage 
basis in the workplan. However, aspects are also 
identified, particularly in knowledge engineering, 
where substantial research is required. 
(ii) External interfaces: concerned with how the 
computing system communicates with its envi­
ronment. This area deals with the recognition, 
understanding and synthesis of signals. These 
signals include those exchanged with humans. 
(iii) Information and knowledge storage: concerned 
with how the computing system organizes its 
store of data and knowledge. This area deals 
with developments in data and knowledge 
bases as well as with techniques of access to 
these bases and with new hardware devices. Advanced information processing systems in gen­
eral will benefit from inputs from the micro-elec­
tronics and software engineering subprogrammes. 
The former will supply faster hardware components, 
while the latter will aid in development of appro­
priate programming environments. Equally, AIP 
systems and techniques will find substantial appli­
cations in Office Systems and Computer Integrated 
Manufacturing, as well as in many other markets. 
(iv) Computer architectures: concerned with config­
urations used by the computing system to do 
its processing. This area deals with the develop­
ment of novel computer architectures and their 
associated programming environments. Parti­
cular emphasis will be placed on the use of 
concurrency. 
Each of these four areas are vital for the develop­
ment of AIP systems. Accordingly they are assigned 
equal priority and roughly equal resources. How­
ever, any given AIP system or application will 
involve a different balance of techniques from the 
four areas. To aid in the development and demon­
stration of complete AIP systems, two further activi­
ties have been identified. 
(v) Design and system: this area is concerned with 
standards, specification and verification tech­
niques, design methods and general system 
methods, which are relevant to the other activi­
ties within the AIP subprogrammes. R&D Area 3.1.: Knowledge Engineering 
Description 
This R&D area is concerned with the tools and 
technologies which will be needed for the practice 
of Knowledge Engineering in order to realise com­
mercially and socially acceptable Knowledge Based 
Systems applications, of which Expert Systems, 
Decision Support and Computer Aided Instruction 
are examples. 
Knowledge Engineering involves the practice of: 
— Decision Analysis to determine the viable 
domains for Knowledge Based Systems (KBS) 
application. 
— Knowledge Acquisition in the chosen domain 
about the objects of reasoning, their taxonomy, 
lines of reasoning, Heuristics, Facts, Rules and 
Dialogue. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/43 
— Classification of the Domain Characteristics 
and selection of the most appropriate corre­
sponding Knowledge Representations and 
Inference Models, later to be extended to 
include knowledge transformation facilities. 
— Realisation of the KBS applications on the 
most appropriate delivery vehicle in terms of 
MMI, Computational Engine capability, 
Data/Knowledge Base capabilities, and Stor­
age capabilities as well as communication facil­
ities. 
— Customisation of the system for users by pro­
viding an adaptive interface which minimises 
cognitive load in terms of the dialogue with the 
system. 
— Manipulation of Knowledge for maintenance 
of installed systems, and for transformation of 
Knowledge for the construction of new KBS 
applications. 
— Dealing with complexity and its implications. 
R&D Topics 
Work will research, specify,and implement the tools 
and techniques of Knowledge Engineering, includ­
ing: 
3.1.1. Knowledge representation and inference 
techniques 
3.1.2. Knowledge acquisition and learning tech­
niques 
3.1.3. Knowledge manipulation 
3.1.4. Dialogue and natural language 
3.1.5. Implementation languages 
3.1.6. Interpreters for high level knowledge repre­
sentation formalisms 
3.1.7. Knowledge-based systems and their metrica­
tion 
3.1.8. Advanced generation KBS applications 
Work in the first five years will concentrate on gain­
ing experience building KBS, particularly Expert 
Systems, using conventional equipment, so as to 
understand and extend capabilities. This would be 
followed subsequently with building an advanced 
generation of KBS, incorporating the results of all 
associated AIP research and results from the Sof­
tware Technology programme. 
Topics 3.1.7. and 3.1.8. jointly represent a rolling 
programme of Demonstrators for early and adv­
anced KBS. It is expected that Demonstrators 
during the first 5 years will continuously feed prob­
lems and weaknesses into the above group of research topics, and conversely, each new rolling 
Demonstrator can use early research results current 
at the time of inception, which it will then keep 
frozen for its 2-3 year duration. 
3.1.1. Knowledge Representation and Inference 
Techniques (Type A) 
Description 
Knowledge Representation is a key factor analo­
gous to Data Modelling in conventional processing. 
Because of its complexity, it requires Engineering, 
Modelling and Transformation of tools of high 
sophistication. It is not expected that any one lan­
guage will emerge — rather that there will be a wide 
range of standards and techniques, which vary 
according to Domain classification, paradigms 
employed, and to Inference/processing Models 
used. A comprehensive effort is needed to differen­
tiate, classify, and extend Knowledge Representa­
tions for these requirements. It is expected that more 
sophisticated applications will need to work with 
multiple differing, but co-operating, knowledge 
domains, and thus research on interworking KRS 
and inference models will be essential. Inference 
mechanisms provide operational semantics for 
knowledge representation languages. 
Existing KBS applications use tools and methods 
which largely incorporate simple rules of inference 
— especially, little (meta) knowledge is applied to 
the use of Knowledge and to control of inference. 
This leaves a lot to be desired in exploiting high 
quality Knowledge and Heuristics, which are often 
the key to KBS effectiveness rather than brute force 
hardware speed. Basic research should include: 
— Development of new Knowledge Representa­
tion paradigms 
— Cognitive modelling 
— Natural deduction technique not requiring 
special implicative form 
— Non classical logics such as temporal and fuzzy 
logic 
— Knowledge based control of the inference pro­
cess itself 
— Non-monotonic reasoning, including con­
straint propagation and reason maintenance, 
especially for real-time applications 
— Exploitation of Contextual Knowledge 
No C 11/44 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
— Classification of Inference Tools and Methods 
against Domains, KRS and Paradigms 
— Time-dependency in general 
— Qualitative reasoning on time and causality in 
physical reality 
— Machine and device models as a basis of 
reasoning on physico-technical systems 
— Schemes of cooperation between distributed 
knowledge sources. 
It is essential that the tools developed for KR are 
exploited for knowledge acquisition in order to pro­
vide feedback and to keep these two basic issues in 
step. It is also essential that any problem solving 
paradigm should be tested on real problems. 
Milestones 
Year 1986/87: 
— Introduce new KRS tool kits and methods into 
project 3.1.7 for 'rolling' exploitation. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Publish European guidelines for components 
of KRS tool kits. 
— Reference 'production' implementation of new 
KRS. 
— Deliver inference models to the Demonstrator 
and Metrics programmes. 
3.1.1.1. Expert System Builder' (Ref. 96: A/83) 
The aim of the project is to provide a system enabling 
expert systems to be developed and tested by person­
nel inexperienced in artificial intelligence. A ring 
structured model has been identified for the system to 
allow progressive development and extension of the 
facilities within the individual layers. The system has 
been designed on the basis of the inner rings being 
completely independent of the domain. The test sys­
tem provides the integral tool set for the upper layers, 
with the capability for later extensions. A particular 
domain has been chosen, that of diagnosis of elec­
tronic systems, because of its increasing demand in 
equipment and manufacturing, and labour intensive-
ness of the methodpresentlyemployed. 3.1.1.2. 'Knowledge Integration & Management 
Systems' (Ref. 112: A/83) 
The project is designed to investigate key areas of 
information processing such as knowledge representa­
tion, inferencing techniques and human computer 
interfaces. Emphasis is on a language for knowledge 
representation and management based on LISP and 
PROLOG; an expert system suited to assist sales 
engineers in designing computer configurations; an 
expert system serving office personnel to perform com­
plex office procedures (e.g. resource planning). These 
complementary tasks focus on the development of 
hardware and software components to manage the 
problems resulting from the size and complexity of 
large knowledge bases and the associated reasoning 
mechanisms. 
3.1.1.3. 'Knowledge Representation and Inference 
Techniques in Industrial Control' (Ref. 387: 
A/84) 
The aim of the project is to design and implement an 
Expert System to assist maintenance, fault diagnosis, 
optimisation of data flows, and control in an indus­
trial process-control environment. Control is consid­
ered as: 
— a highly time-dependent environment where input 
channels are numerous (well over 1 000) 
— very high in complexity. 
Therefore an Expert System that either has to main­
tain a process-controlling device or help the operating 
personnel with their decisions must have some addi­
tional features: 
— the reasoning procedures must take the time-
dependency into account; 
— the capturing of input data must be accomplished 
automatically; 
— to assist in overcoming complexity barriers in such 
devices, a machine learning capability is neces­
sary. 
The application area of process control, including the 
process to be controlled as well as the controlling de­
vice itself, establishes an entire class of applications 
to all of which the proposed system may be applied. 
Advances over existing Expert Systems lies in: 
— making process-control in critical areas more 
secure by assisting the operator in his decisions 
and by reducing the drop-out rate of the control­
ling devices; 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/45 
— permitting the users to more fully exploit inherent 
features of complex systems in both maintenance 
aspects and control of dataflows. 
3.1.1.4. 'An Architecture for Interactive Problem 
Solving by Cooperating Data and Know­
ledge Bases'(Ref 316: A/84) 
The main goal of the project is the design and imple­
mentation of an expert system architecture for 
advice-giving. Advice-giving is special among know­
ledge based activities in that the original goal of a 
user seeking advice may be ill-defined and there may 
be a huge number of potential solutions for the user to 
choose from. The purpose of an automatic advisor is 
to help the user articulate his goals and then to gener­
ate candidate solutions for the user to accept or reject. 
The main computational problem to be solved is one 
of controlling the cooperative functioning of several 
sources of knowledge, which may use different repre­
sentational schemes interpreted by different inference 
engines. A promising architecture appears to be one 
which considers each knowledge source to be an inde­
pendent agent, which only communicates with other 
such agents via a global data structure, under the 
supervision of a flexible scheduler capable of reason­
ing about control. In addition to architectural issues, 
the project emphasizes the importance of user model­
ling in man-machine dialogue and the use of large 
databases to provide an advisor with comprehensive 
information. 
3.1.1.5. Supporting B-type Research Themes 
B-type proposals in support of area 3.1.1 are invited. 
Some of these may lead to A-Type projects later. 
Candidate topics include: 
— differentiation, classification and extension of 
Knowledge Representations for various domain 
classifications, paradigms employed and infer­
ence/processing models used 
— experimental approaches to Knowledge Repre­
sentation, their specific ranges of application 
and their integration 
— inference techniques, especially for KR formal­
isms that have no known proof algorithm — meta-level reasoning,including problems of 
self-reference and system 'self-awareness' 
— real-time inference techniques 
— techniques for planning and programme syn­
thesis 
— structuring of inference techniques, and the role 
of meta-knowledge 
— automatic adaptation and enhancement 
— inference under conditions of conflicting and 
uncertain knowledge 
— the impact of Knowledge Representation on 
inference techniques 
— default and closed world reasoning 
— non monotonic, and proportional dynamic logic 
— bypassing mechanisms for dealing with incon­
sistencies 
— reasoning in terms of physical objects and 
images 
— parallelism of KBS and its representation 
Note that proposals related to this area are also 
invited in areas 2.1.3.4, 4.4.3.1, 5.5.2 and 5.4.2. 
3.1.2. Knowledge Acquisition and Learning Tech­
niques (Type A) 
Description 
The knowledge acquisition process is complex and a 
major effort is required in this direction to speed up 
the development of KBS. It is important to differen­
tiate here between (a) the knowledge extraction 
from human experts to set up a particular KBS, (b) 
learning by the KBS and (c) the optimization of the 
KBS. Although interrelated, they are distinct pro­
cesses. Therefore it is mandatory to develop con­
cepts to support the development of systems for 
knowledge elicitation and modelling. A multidisci-
plinary approach, which takes into account cogni­
tive and psychological aspects, is needed to develop 
a set of toolsranging from knowledge, editors to 
automatic KB constructors. KR tools will be pre­
sented with a valuable test bed in this area. This task 
covers the extraction or elicitation of knowledge, the 
identification of appropriate models of learning and 
the investigation of learning techniques appropriate 
for AIP systems. 
NoC 11/46 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
Milestones 
Year 1984/85: 
— Idenfication of models and tools; early imple­
mentation for testing 
— Design of internal data structures and opera­
tions for a program which learns. 
Year 1985/86: 
— Preliminary testing of KBS which learns from 
the expert 
Year 1986/88: 
— Full-scale commercially valuable learning 
experiments with the program. 
Proposals for A-type (and supporting B-type) pro­
jects for area 3.1.2 are invited. 
Candidate B-type research themes include: 
— development of techniques for knowledge 
extraction 
— concepts, algorithms and techniques to support 
the development of programs and machines 
which learn 
— identification of appropriate models of learning 
— investigation of learning techniques appropriate 
for AIP systems 
— advice transformation systems 
— capabilities of an advanced system to measure 
its own performance and to improve such per­
formance. 
Note that proposals related to this area are also 
invited in areas 4.1.2.5 and 5.4.4. 
3.1.3. Knowledge Manipulation (Type A) 
Following early work on Knowledge Representation 
(3.1.1), experience from early Applications and stu­
dies of Knowledge Engineering measures (3.1.7), 
and studies of Dialogue (3.1.4), the needs for meth­
ods and tools associated with the practice of the 
Knowledge Engineering skill will become clear. The 
environment for Knowledge Manipulation will of 
course be completely interactive, and be aided with 
Graphics. Work in this area will include: 
— Knowledge revision and retrieval 
— Consistency checkers 
— KRS proof checkers Knowledge Dictionary systems 
Knowledge Compilation 
Constraint propagation and truth maintenance 
systems 
Knowledge Transformation (different views of 
common Knowledge) 
Knowledge Abstraction from external sources 
Knowledge Acquisition/Process Analysis 
Guide and Tutor for Knowledge Engineering 
itself 
KBS Distribution and Automated Knowledge 
Maintenance 
Integration of Multiple Knowledge representa­
tion 
This developing set of capabilities should be inte­
grated into recommended 'European' tool kits for 
handling Knowledge. This project area is comple­
mentary to the larger ones in 3.1.1 and 3.1.2. A-type 
(and supporting B-type) proposals are invited for 
area 3.1.3. 
3.1.4. Dialogue and Natural Language (Type A) 
Description 
A programme is required on the tools and methods 
for dialogue and communication languages which 
are natural to the domains in which KBS applica­
tions are to be competent. Included in this is the 
application of Knowledge and Context to the con­
duct and understanding of two-way dialogue, and 
of 'intelligence' to the interchange of dialogue ini­
tiative between system and client users. 
The dialogue itself should enhance the quality of 
system behaviour by offering co-operation, under­
standing and modelling of personal behaviour and 
preference and paraphrase (all of which are Know­
ledge Based): it should also allow clients to interact 
with the system at various meta-levels whilst keep­
ing track of all the context which may have to be 
returned to by system or client, following error or 
confusion. Explanation of KBS behaviour is abso­
lutely critical to acceptance of such systems; this 
can be enhanced by interworking of the Knowledge 
about the user with that of the application. 
Dialogue is more general than character string com­
munication; it extends to the use of high bandwidth 
graphics, explanatory pictures and films, and audio 
support. 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/47 
There is a need for a holistic, broad-coverage 
approach to communication through natural lan­
guage, in order to support the construction of know­
ledge based systems and natural language front 
ends. 
Milestones 
Year 1985/86: 
— Deliver Generators and Parsers for a variety of 
dialogue languages. 
Year 1986/87: 
— Specify and implement Knowledge Based Lan­
guage processing tools 
— Integrate Knowledge Based Language process­
ing/dialogue tools into KBS applications. 
3.1.4.1. A CORD: Construction and Interrogation 
of Knowledge Bases Using Natural Lan­
guage Text and Graphics' (Ref. 393: A/84) 
The A CORD project focusses on a trilingual system 
for the automatic construction of a knowledge base 
out of a natural language text and an intelligent 
retrieval and manipulation system aimed at casual 
users. The knowledge base will be built from docu­
ments combining text and graphics (encyclopedia or 
technical type) and will be logic oriented. The deep 
representation will be accessible from several compo­
nents of the systems interface. The analysis of texts 
will be based on recent results in theoretical linguistics 
(discourse representation theory and functional gram­
mars). 
To support dialogue, the system will select appropriate 
presentation of output, text or graphics, and identify 
relevant information for output, in a symbiotic inter­
play of graphics and natural language. The graphic 
module will build on recent work on knowledge repre­
sentation of graphical operations and on graphics 
linked to text dialogue. The programming environ­
ment will be PROLOG. 
3.1.4.2. 'Communication Failure in Dialogue: Tech­
niques for Detection and Repair' (Ref. 527: 
B/84) 
The first task of the project will be to identify the cir­
cumstances in which dialogue participants fail to com­
municate, to discover how participants detect com­munication failure, and to discover what techniques 
they use to re-establish communication. The dialogues 
considered will be of two types: person-person and per­
son-machine. Both their verbal and non-verbal aspects 
will be studied. The next stage of the project will be 
the development of a formal model, encompassing 
both the above aspects, and embodying useful detec­
tion and repair strategies. Finally, a computational 
implementation will be used to develop language-pro­
cessing tools which can be incorporated into know­
ledge-based systems. 
3.1.4.3. 'Knowledge and graphics based system for 
dynamic environment' (Ref 600: B/84) 
This project will investigate dialogue principles on the 
background of the following application. Supervision 
and control is in many respects equivalent to access to 
a data base containing historical plant data, being 
continuously updated. The aspects of dialogue, which 
will be studied in this context are: 
— principles for dialogue, where dynamic generation 
of graphics is an essential element; 
— principles for adaptative dialogue, where the sys­
tem adapts to the situation; 
— principles for the description of industrial plant, 
which can be used as 'data dictionary'for the his­
torical data base. 
The project will be based on the implementation of a 
prototype, which will be used for experimentation and 
thereby for identification of research topics. Research 
into these areas will be pursued in parallel. 
Proposals for additional supporting B-type propo­
sals are invited for area 3.1.4. Candidate research 
themes include: 
— natural language systems architecture 
— application of existing and developing tech­
niques in cognitive psychology and psycho-
linguistics to dialogue and natural language 
processing 
— efficency-oriented, broad coverage approaches 
to the natural language interface (including con­
text and semantics) 
— natural language approaches to knowledge 
representation 
— empirical user studies on mixed language-
graphics interfaces 
NoC 11/48 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
Further A-type projects may be invited after 1986. 
Note that proposals related to this area are also 
invited in areas 4.1.3.6, 4.2.4.5, 4.2.5.2 and 4.2.5.6. 
3.1.5. Implementation Languages and Environments 
(Type A) 
Description 
Evaluation of, recommendations on, and extension 
of, candidate implementation languages for tools of 
the research programme and as tools for Knowledge 
Engineers engaged in the construction of KBS 
applications. This should include languages for 
Knowledge Modelling and for specification/design 
prototyping of KBS components. Later work should 
concentrate on establishing standards, which manu­
facturers will then treat as a safe base for significant 
hardware investment. An important aspect of lan­
guage evaluation is the richness and utility of their 
embedded development environments. It is 
expected that the Software Engineering portable 
common tools programme (PCTE) will address port­
ability. 
Milestones 
Year 1984/85: 
— Identify and evaluate candidate languages (for 
example Smalltalk, LISP, PROLOG, 
POPLOG) environments and architectures 
— Publish critiques and recommend changes e.g. 
language extensions to exploit parallelism 
— Implement extensions 
Year 1985/86: 
— Issue guidelines to ESPRIT 
— Make reference language systems available. 
3.1.5.1. 'Advanced Logical Programming Environ­
ments'(Ref. 363: B/84) 
To study and develop the tools necessary to a very 
high level Programming Environment for a Logical 
Programming language like PROLOG. The project 
merges several academic and industrial research 
groups working on this subject. Besides the usual Pro­gramming Environment facilities it aims at improving 
the programmer's reliability by taking advantage 
firstly of the relational nature of Logical programming 
which allows clear executable, but maybe inefficient, 
specifications and, secondly, of its good behaviour 
relative to theorem proving which allows much better 
verification and validation possibilities. 
Proposals for A-type projects in area 3.1.5 are 
invited. Proposals for supporting B-type projects are 
also invited and candidate research themes include: 
— higher level implementation languages for 
Knowledge Representation and inference 
— adaptation of formalisms for real-world know­
ledge to practical implementation languages for 
KBS 
— languages and environments for concurrent pro­
cessing and for the integration of formal, struc­
tured 'software engineering' with KBS require­
ments. 
Note that proposals related to this area are also 
invited in areas 2.1.3.5 and 2.3.3.3. 
3.1.6. Interpreters to support high-level knowledge 
representation formalisms (Type A) 
The objective is the rationalisation and re-imple-
menation and improvement of interpreters (compi­
lers) for the various knowledge representations and 
manipulation methods developed from ad-hoc 
implementations in areas 3.1.1 and 3.1.3. This pro­
ject area will not commence before 1986. 
3-1.7. KBS and Their Metrication (Type A) 
The objective is an on-going programme, over at 
least 5 years, of construction of Demonstrator KBS 
applications, using state-of-art facilities (hardware, 
software and large databases) available at the time, 
so as to maintain an up-to-date pool of expertise on 
Knowledge Engineering Skills and on classification 
of domain characteristics against available tools and 
methods. It will be a vehicle for learning about the 
strengths and weaknesses of the tools and methods 
used for Process Analysis, Knowledge Representa­
tion and Manipulation, Inference and Processing, 
Problem Solving Paradigms and Human Factors/ 
MMI. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/49 
This particular project covers the first phase of the 
on-going Demonstrator Programme, with a switch 
over of resources from the fifth year into project 
3.1.8 for the second phase of the Demonstrator Pro­
gramme. 
Since the tools and methods vary for domain classes 
showing major differences in character, Demonstra­
tors should include widely varied examples in fields 
of Creative Design, Production Control, Diagnosis, 
Systems Modelling, Signal Processing, Decision 
Making and Software Engineering. As such, this 
programme will be a crucial source of education, 
and of direction for on-going/future research pro­
grammes, and of experience for making marketable 
KBS applications. 
Almost nothing is known about the practice of 
Knowledge Engineering as a human skill, or about 
KBS performance, evaluation, measurement and 
acceptability in terms of client productivity. It is 
necessary to identify those metrics which are of.sig-
nificance and to establish methods and tools for 
their measurement — quality of knowledge is cru­
cial but difficult to metricate. This work must also 
create a 'tools and methods' kit for Knowledge 
Engineers to size KBS applications in terms of con­
struction and client usage resources, and in terms of 
the most appropriate system components. It is 
important to coordinate the development of toolkits 
and to ensure the distribution of tools within Esprit, 
but also to be aware of the dangers of too-early stan­
dardization. 
The metrication part of this project cannot be over-
stressed: for industrial and commercial use of know­
ledge engineering to become properly established, it 
will be crucial to be able to predict both the costs 
and the benefits of KBS applications. 
Knowledge Engineering will be a bigger bottleneck 
than software production if the issues of human 
productivity, as well as system performance, are not 
understood. As such, this work is very important in 
the top down design of KBS applications. Since 
new tools and techniques are added continually to 
the Knowledge Engineering repertoire during the 
ESPRIT Programme, this metrication work should 
be organised as a continuously rolling programme. 
Milestones 
Year 1984/85: 
— Identify metrication aspects for evaluation — Develop concepts and methods for solutions 
— Make initial measurements on available KBS 
applications. 
Year 1985/86: 
— Develop metrication Tools and Methods 
— Assemble KBS Demonstrator 
— Record Construction Methods and Results. 
Year 1986/87: 
— Measurement and Analysis of Productivity and 
performance for the target applications 
— Carry out experiments on Demonstrators to 
determine acceptability, impact on 'client' prod­
uctivity and Life Cycle aspects. 
— Report on Construction productivity and 
recommend new Tools and Methods. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Publish productivity and performance recom­
mendations, and guidelines for Knowledge 
Engineers 
— Demonstrate new automated metrication meth­
ods. 
3.1.7.1. 'Real Time Knowledge Based Monitor for 
Business Processes'(Ref. 296: B/84) 
KBS may be used to monitor the progress of a busi­
ness system, such as production planning in manufac­
turing. In order to achieve this, the Knowledge Base 
must be a model of the production planning process, 
and the Fact Data Base must be a model of the status 
of this process. The task of the Control Engine con­
sists of matching the status against the model of the 
process in order to identify the next action which has 
to happen. The control engine of the proposed system 
has features that go beyond those of traditional infer­
ence engines: 
— // is a real time system that responds to any 
change of the business status. Therefore the pro­
posed KBS must handle real time objects; 
— it has to be operational continuously. 
In order that the knowledge base be a model of the 
production planning process, this process has to be for­
mally described. The concepts of activity, state and 
agent will be used. Mapping this formal model into 
the knowledge base poses representational issues, and 
NoC 11/50 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
several techniques will be investigated. The project 
defines three types of knowledge acquisition tools, 
according to the source of knowledge (Business proce­
dure, task sequence description including pro­
grammes, and user's mind). 
3.1.7.2. 'Knowledge Based Assistant for Electro­
myography' (Ref 599: B/84) 
The aim of the project is to develop a knowledge based 
assistant to support physicians in all stages of an elec^ 
tromyographic (EMG) examination of patients with 
neurological disease. The result of the project will be a 
demonstrator system. In the short term expert assist­
ance will be implemented on two separate, well-
defined and important aspects of the EMG problem ; 
in the longer term a more ambitious system will be 
developed to provide more comprehensive assistance 
to the physician. 
Proposals for A-type projects under 3.1.7 are 
invited. Also, proposals for B-type supporting pro­
jects are invited. Candidate research themes 
include: 
— application of existing and developing tech­
niques in cognitive psychology to KBS 
— representation and use of general and specific 
real-world knowledge 
— complexity metrics for KBS 
— measures of completeness, consistency 
— applicability of General Measurement Theory 
— whole life-cycle of KBS; human acceptability 
and productivity aspects for both developers 
and clients as well as technical performance 
issues. 
Note that proposals related to this area are invited 
in areas 2.1.3.4, 2.1.4.3, 2.2.4, 5.4.3 and 5.4.4. 
3.1.8. Advanced Generation KBS Applications 
(Type A) 
This project will cover the development of advanced 
Expert and Knowledge Based Systems incorporat­
ing learning, approximate and meta reasoning with 
common sense capabilities. KBS applications will 
have to be exploited by non-specialists who will 
expect from these systems not only formal and 
approximate reasoning processes, but also common 
sense reasoning processes similar in effect to those 
of humans. instance, applications of modelling where qualita­
tive heuristics characterise most learned human 
experience. 
The advanced generation of KBS applications will 
be expected to exploit the lessons of first generation 
attempts (3.1.7), the fruits of KRS and Inference 
research (3.1.1), the tools of Knowledge Manipula­
tion (3.1.3), the latest languages and engines (3.1.5/ 
3.1.6), the fruits of Natural Language processing 
research (3.1.4), and the fruits of the External Inter­
faces programme (3.2) for handling Speech and 
Images. Therefore no project in this area is intended 
to start before 1989. 
R&D Area 3.2.: External Interfaces 
Description 
This area is concerned with how the computing sys­
tem communicates with its environment, with parti­
cular reference to the use of speech or visual signals. 
Thus the work in this area deals with recognition, 
interpretation and synthesis of signals. 
Two types of external interface occur. Those that 
extract their information by direct natural communi­
cation, and those that acquire knowledge by means 
of their sensors. In either case the system will need 
to process the signals to understand and interpret 
their significance. Aspects concerned with human 
factors, e.g. user-friendliness, are covered by Area 4 
— Office Systems. 
R&D Topics 
Work in this area falls under three main headings: 
3.2.1. Image processing 
— Two-dimensional picture processing 
— Depth and motion analysis 
— Picture synthesis 
3.2.2. Speech recognition 
3.2.3. Other 
Many applications where reasoning is needed 
involve some kind of approximate reasoning. For — Multi-sensor signal processsing 
— Optical signal processing 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/51 
3.2.1. Image processing 
3.2.1.1. Two-dimensional picture processing 
(Type A) 
This topic is concerned with processing of 2-D 
images, concentrating specifically on the informa­
tion contained within the image in the form of fea­
tures such as edges, texture, shape, etc. Techniques 
that treat the image merely as sampled data are not 
included. This area is an essential prerequisite for all 
high-level image processing work, as well as having 
many direct applications. 
Milestones 
Year 1985/86: 
— Demonstrate improved feature extraction tech­
niques 
— Determine performance measures 
Year 1987/88: 
— Implement efficient hardware modules 
— Construct systems for chosen applications. 
See 3.2.1.2 for ongoing A-type project. Supporting 
B-type proposals are invited. 
Proposals related to this area are also invited in 
4.2.2.1. 
3.2.1.2. 'Advanced Algorithms and Architectures for 
Signal processing' (Ref. 26: A/83) 
Main objective of the project is to develop a real time 
signal processing system that is designed to be com­
patible between first (i.e. feature extraction) and suc­
cessive (i.e. recognition and understanding) levels of 
computing functions. The work has therefore been 
planned to run in three parallel areas : speech ana­
lysis, image analysis, signal recognition and under­
standing. To have a realistic framework for the pro­
ject, specific applications will be identified and a sys­
tem breadboard will be assembled and used as a 
demonstrator unit to provide benchmarking and test­
ing. An identification of different processing levels 
with defined interfaces stresses possible degrees of 
commonality, and is aimed to encourage harmonisa-
tion and standardisation. 
This project covers the topics of 3.2.1.1, and 3.2.2. 3.2.1.3. Depth and motion analysis (Type A) 
This topic helps to bridge the gap between image 
analysis/feature extraction and scene understand­
ing. The techniques for depth and motion analysis 
have considerable commonality, although the appli­
cations may be as diverse as video coding or robot­
ics. 
Milestones 
Year 1985/86: 
— demonstrate analysis techniques e.g. binocular 
stereo and optic flow. 
Year 1986/87: 
— Design and implement efficient hardware 
modules. 
Year 1988-89: 
— Demonstrate in real time application. 
Proposals are invited for A-type and supporting 
B-type proposals, in addition to the ones described 
in 3.2.1.4 and 3.2.1.5. 
Candidate research themes include: 
— geometric reasoning 
— generation of sparse reliable image representa­
tions suitable for correlation in stereopsis and 
optic flow. 
Proposals related to this area are also invited in 
4.2.3.7 and 5.5.1. 
3.2.1.4. 'Image and Movement Understanding' 
(Ref. 419/420: B/84) 
The project is concerned with the construction of a 
machine vision system, via a 3D model of scenes of 
moving objects. This concerns the integration of low 
level features for 3D shape and motion analysis, the 
iconic representations and matching techniques and 
the study of cognitive modelling. The project also aims 
at understanding the writing process by acquiring 
knowledge about the mapping from lingiustic material 
to hard trajectories. A signal processing stage will aim 
at building an appropriate symblic description of cur­
sive script in terms of primitive elements such as 
strokes. 
NoC 11/52 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
3.2.1.5. 'Real time generation and display of the 
2.5D sketch for moving scenes' (Ref. 532: 
B/84) 
The project will develop and implement a fully engi­
neered demonstrator prototype of an imaging system 
which is capable of producing a form of 2.5 D sketch 
directly. This sketch, in which image intensity will be 
related to range, will be in one-to-one pixel corre­
spondence with an illumination intensity representation 
which will simultaneously be generated. The geometric 
characteristics of the proposed system permit range 
accuracies of a small number of millimeters at range 
of one metre to be achieved theoretically. Statistical 
operations performed on successive range estimates 
should permit a marked improvement over the single 
measure resolution. 
3.2.1.6. Picture Synthesis (Type A) 
Picture synthesis is especially important in a scena­
rio where computers simulate parts of the real 
world.Very fast graphics processing techniques are 
as important as flexible storage techniques for 
images. 
Supporting B-type proposals are invited. 
3.2.1.7. 'A study of Real-time Perspective Synthesis' 
(Ref 411: A/84) 
The purpose of this R&D work is to study picture 
synthesis through an intercommunicating man-mach­
ine system. Based on prior R&D work, it will be pos­
sible to design a very compact 20 Gigabits sequen­
tial/random read only memory and high speed pro­
cessors which can supply picture Synthesis techniques 
in real time at the end of the 80's. The main work will 
be to establish the interface hardware and software 
techniques which are required for the completion of an 
experimental system. As a representative model, to 
identify desired design features, the picture synthesis 
will be used on a 3D map display mix of computer 
graphics and images. 
7)22. Speech Recognition (Type A) 
Flexible input of data into systems by speech is 
needed as this is man's most natural signal. Because 
speech is normally produced in connected form it is 
not enough to recognise only isolated spoken com­
mands. Speaker independence and insensitivity to 
noise are other important requirements. The AIP 
research in this field is expected to cover the more fundamental aspects, while the parallel work in the 
Office Systems programme is part of the develop­
ment of an integrated office workstation, including 
also speech synthesis from text. 
Milestones 
Year 1985/86: 
— Demonstrate algorithms for ca. 1 000 word 
speaker dependent recognition and ca. 100 word 
speaker independent recognition. 
— Report on architecture definition. 
Year 1986/87: 
— Simulate specialized integrated circuits. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Demonstrate use of specialized circuits in real­
time recognition system for above specifica­
tions. 
See 3.2.1.2 for ongoing A-type project. 
Supporting B-type proposals are invited. 
Candidate research themes include: 
— phonetics 
— syntax, semantics and context (see 3.1.4) 
— psycho-acoustics. 
Note that proposals for related work are invited in 
areas 4.2.4.3 and 4.2.4.5. Text-to-speech work is in 
4.2.4.4. 
3.2.3.1. Multi-Sensor Signal Processing (Type A) 
This topic is concerned with the processing and cor­
relation of multiple streams of signal information, a 
problem of increasing importance in many areas 
where multiple sensors are used to acquire informa­
tion at different points or about different aspects. 
Examples occur in the areas of process control, 
CIM, earth resources and biomedical signals. 
Milestones 
Year 1985/86: 
— Establish techniques for correlating between 
different signal sources 
— System design for specific application. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/53 
Year 1986/87: 
— Construct demonstrator. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Complete and evaluate demonstrator. 
Proposals are invited for A-type and supporting 
B-type projects. 
Note that related work is described in 5.5.1. 
3.2.3.2. Optical Signal Processing (Type A) 
Optical processing offers a potentially enormous 
bandwidth with processing at the speed of light. It is 
particularly suitable for global operations involved 
in pattern recognition e.g. filtering, correlation, con­
volution. Work is required to develop a high per­
formance electro-optic interface and to develop 
real-time 2-D processing techniques. A non-linear 
process known as degenerate four wave mixing 
(DFWM) also has considerable potential. Also 
research into optical processing architectures and 
system design is needed. 
Milestones 
Year 1985/86: 
— Specify performance requirements for likely 
processes 
— Evaluate and implement into system. 
Year 1986/87: 
— Extend systems e.g. include Mellin-Fourier 
Transforms. Implement improved materials/ 
architectures. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Construct compact practical processors for 
identified applications. Highlight areas for 
future research and development. 
Proposals for A-type and supporting B-type projects 
are invited. 
Note that related work is described in area 1.5. R&D Area 3.3.: Information and Knowledge Storage 
Description 
Knowledge based systems are designed to derive 
information from r stored data and to indicate their 
line of reasoning in arriving at a conclusion. The 
effectiveness of any knowledge based system is 
determined by the quality of its knowledge base (its 
completeness, validity and accessibility) and of the 
architecture, function and performance of its know­
ledge store and its deduction mechanism. These 
concepts will also be useful in improving the acces­
sibility of more conventional databases to the 
human user, so coordination is needed with the evo­
lutionary improvements in database management 
systems (DBMS) proposed in Software Technology 
projects. 
This R&D area investigates the new forms of 
organisation which will be necessary to hold and 
process representation of data, knowledge, and meta 
knowledge. 
The main objectives of this area are: 
— the definition of information and knowledge 
storage organisations, especially machine 
aspects; 
— the identification of functional partitions, struc­
tures and mechanisms including distributed and 
very large knowledge bases; 
— the development of new storage structures and 
devices; 
— the introduction of new physical principles to 
support new storage devices (e.g. optical, biol­
ogical); 
— the realisation of adequate interactive tech­
niques, especially for the non-expert user; 
— automatic or semi-automatic construction of 
very large knowledge systems. 
Work in this area will strongly depend on advances 
in knowledge engineering and memory technology. 
R&D Topics 
The topics to be covered by this area are as follows: 
3.3.1. Interface between Storage and Environment 
3.3.2. Data and Knowledge Bases 
— Knowledge Bases for AIP 
No C 11/54 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
— Distributed Data Bases and Knowledge Bases 
— Advanced DBMS and KBMS 
3.3.3. Storage Structures and Architectures 
— Database and Knowledge Base Oriented Archi­
tectures 
— Performance Models for Storage Structures 
— Storage Architecture 
3.3.4. Medium-term research on applications of 
new magnetic and semiconductor storage 
media 
3.3.5. Long-term Research on Optical and Biologi­
cal Storage. 
The work in the early years will concentrate on gain­
ing experience in knowledge storage and corre­
sponding access/dialogue techniques. 
3.3.1. Interface between Storage and Environment 
(Type A) 
3.3.1.1. 'A Logic-oriented Approach to Knowledge 
and Data Bases Supporting Natural User 
Interaction' (Ref. 107: A/83) 
This project covers: 
— A user/machine interface in natural language 
(German and English) enriched with graphical 
facilities; 
— A human oriented high level representation for 
malism based on (an extension of) first order 
logic; 
— A machine oriented representation formalism also 
based on logic but intended for efficient reason­
ing; 
— A 'machine' integrating data and knowledge 
stored in the machine oriented formalism with the 
knowledge and data stored in existing tools. 
3.3.1.2. 'Intelligent Help for Information System 
Users'(Ref. 280: B/84) 
The project proposes to investigate approaches 
towards helping users of information systems learn 
optimally to exploit the functions of those information 
systems. These approaches will be operationally imple­mented in the form of a prototype HELP system to 
provide guidelines, instructions and explanations to 
user requests for IES facilities. 
Major components of a HELP system are: 
(a) a set of Information System Paradigms (ISP's), 
which are conceptual representations of the sys­
tem helping the user to understand it; 
(b) a set of generic user models, related to the ISP's; 
(c) a library of explicit and implicit teaching and 
coaching strategies; 
(d) a set of explanation facilities to provide specific 
information and explanation to heterogeneous 
types of users; 
(e) a control structure for the organization and man­
agement of the helping process. 
The development of an intelligent HELP system 
requires extensive empirical research on the naive con­
ceptual models of information systems held by many 
users, on the potential value of the users of ISP's, on 
the acquirability of such a new paradigms, on the 
effectiveness of various coaching strategies and 
explanation procedures. It is also necessary to con­
sider the appropriate underlying knowledge represen­
tation formalisms. 
Candidate research themes for supporting B-type 
projects in area 3.3.1 include: 
— security and associated issues in group usage of 
common knowledge bases 
— behavioural and cognitive studies. 
3.3.2. Data and Knowledge Bases 
Evolutionary developments of conventional data­
bases are dealt with under Software Technology 
(2.1.2); it is expected that work in this section of 
AIP will incorporate new approaches from other 
directions. 
3.3.2.1. Knowledge Bases for AIP (Type A) 
Studies are proposed to establish the interfaces, for­
malisms, languages, hardware and software compo­
nents which are required for the construction, distri­
bution, functional partitioning and hierarchic struc­
turing of KB,including formulation of inference and 
data query access at levels ranging from human-
visible to those internal to the new generation of sys-
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/55 
terns. The focus of this work is to investigate com­
monalities and specifics in the architectural models 
of database and knowledge management systems. 
Milestones 
Year 1986/87: 
— Develop KB specifications and model on a 
computer 
— Define system standards and structure and sup­
porting specialised hardware. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Prototype implementation. 
3.3.2.1.1. 'Advanced Data and Knowledge Manage­
ment Systems' (Ref. 311: A/84) 
The project establishes a connection between the 
methodologies developed for data base (DB) manage­
ment and organisation and the techniques developed 
in the Artificial Intelligence (A I) community for repre­
senting and using knowledge bases (KBS). The project 
aims at the definition of an advanced system which 
allows an intelligent and efficient management of 
large amounts of information stored in it. The follow­
ing topics will be addressed: 
1. Definition of information and knowledge storage 
organisation for effective deduction and retrieval 
of facts from a specific domain using possibly 
incomplete and inexact knowledge about the 
domain (and related meta-knowledge). 
2. Definition of optimisation techniques at the 
domain independent level as well as at the 
domain dependent level for efficient access. 
3. Verify completeness, adequacy and efficiency of 
the proposed solutions, construction of a natural 
language interpreter. 
The project will also address issues related to logic 
programming, with the goal of comparing the two 
approaches and, eventually, of finding out criteria in 
favour of the adoption of one of them, in order to start 
the design of a system embodying the selected 
approach. 3.3.2.1.2. 'Advanced Knowledge Base Management 
System' (Ref. 530: A/84) 
The project aim is to study and develop a prototype of 
KBMS, obtained by integrating the data base tech­
nology with an inference component, based on logic 
programming technology. The first of three parallel 
tasks will focus on the relevance of the data base tech­
nology to the overall performance of KBMS. Different 
integration mechanisms and different strategies for 
knowledge partitioning will be evaluated with respect 
to performance and reusability of existing data bases. 
The outcome of this research activity will be the defini­
tion of requirements on architectural models for inte­
grating inference and data base machines and a soft­
ware KBMS prototype. The second task will study the 
basic problems related to distributed KBMS and very 
large knowledge-based systems. Options using distri­
buted DBMS and/or defining the distributed archi­
tecture at the inference component level, will be con­
sidered and a structure will be chosen for prototyping. 
The possibility of using the data base technology to 
store the deductive knowledge will also be studied as a 
possible solution for very large knowledge-based sys­
tems. The third task will focus on tools (typically con­
cerned with various user interfaces) for building and 
using knowledge-based systems and on the use of 
metaknowledge. 
3.3.2.1.3. 'Knowledge Based User Friendly Inter­
faces for the utilisation of Information 
Bases'(Ref 641: B/84) 
The project is to define and develop a knowledge-
based system to provide user-friendly interfaces to 
existing and new databases and knowledge bases. The 
system will: 
— Refer to a semantically rich high-level representa­
tion describing both the conceptual content of the 
knowledge base and databases and the man-
machine dialogue: 
— Provide an interface to existing databases stored 
in a network of heterogeneous nodes. Extracted 
data may be organised in the local database of 
the system. The schemata of existing databases 
will be described by semantic data models; 
— Provide a user friendly interaction in order to sup­
port the navigation of a user through the concep­
tual description and the querying of databases 
and to allow the end-user to develop advanced 
applications using both knowledge and data. 
NoC 11/56 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
TTie work consists of: 
— Selection of the appropriate formalism; 
— Development of a standard interface to hetero­
geneous distributed databases based on a con­
ceptual data model; 
— Development of an interaction methodology 
between the user and the system based on logical 
independence; 
— Development of an advanced application environ­
ment for end-users concerned with modelling 
some reality, handling existing data and know­
ledge and creating solutions to standard or unex­
pected problems; 
— Feasibility study, logical design and prototype 
implementation of a system based on the above 
described principles that provide an optimal 
execution; 
— Testing of the quality of the system by means of 
some realistic applications. 
3.3.2.2. Distributed DB and KB (Type A) 
There will be a study in parallel to 3.3.2.1 aimed at 
establishing additional 'access' formulation lan­
guages, formalisms, interfaces and technology 
which are required for distributed knowledge based 
information systems. The study includes investiga­
tions on very large knowledge bases and its impact 
on (e.g. parallel) storage architectures. Distributed 
structures will be modelled and standards devel­
oped. Note that work in this area should maintain 
close liaison with related work in Software Technol­
ogy (2.1.2) and take note of the requirements of 
Office Systems and Computer Integrated Manufac­
turing. 
Milestones 
Year 1986/87: 
— Lay down hierarchical structures for distributed 
DB and KB and selected inference mechanisms. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Implement model on realistically-sized applica­
tion. 
3.3.2.3. Advanced DBMS and KBMS (Type B) 
It is expected that distinctions between DBMS and 
KBMS will gradually disappear as advances from 
both directions influence each other. The last part of the project area therefore emphasises some ad­
vanced topics of Data and Knowledge Base Manage­
ment Systems which are not realised in present sys­
tems and which will be useful in future DBMS/ 
KBMS. These include the representation and mani­
pulation of complex objects, exploitation of infer­
ence mechanisms, realisation of view mechanisms, 
semantic control and validation of queries. Propo­
sals are invited for B-type projects, which may lead 
to later A-type projects. 
3.3.2.4. Other B-type Research Themes 
Candidate topics for additional B-type projects sup­
porting area 3.3.2 include: 
— comparative studies of knowledge representa­
tions with respect to the construction and use of 
very large and quasi-permanent knowledge 
bases; 
— investigate relevance of formalisms utilised in 
knowledge representation, including issues of 
coexistence and conversion of different repre­
sentations; 
— investigate fundamental architectural issues, i.e. 
logical inter-relationships between the compo­
nent 'machines' of a KBS such as: 
— KBM Machine 
— advanced interface machine 
— inference machine including impact on sys­
tems architecture of above issues: 
— efficient utilisation of bulk data through hybrid 
interfacing of DB and KB systems; 
— preliminary investigations on storage structures 
and architectures. 
Note that related proposals are invited in 2.3.3.4 and 
that related work is described in 4.3.3.1, 4.4.2.1, and 
5.4.4. 
Advanced Storage Structure 
The following subsections 3.3.3 to 3.3.5 describe 
research themes which are regarded for the time 
being as Type B, but which may well become 
Type A in the later years of Esprit. B-type proposals 
are invited, some of which could lead to later A-type 
projects. 
3.3.3. Storage Structures and Architectures 
In the last decade, different database-oriented archi­
tectures (intelligent controllers, software backends, 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/57 
database machines) have been investigated. The 
motivation behind the approaches is essentially to 
free the powerful and expensive main computer 
from the burden of handling large amounts of data 
involving quite simple operations. This research 
theme will develop the potential for an integrated 
data and knowledge base architecture. 
Performance Models for Storage Structures specify 
and target a system of metrics for, and quantifica­
tion measurement of, the effectiveness of storage 
system structures. 
Also, the storage architecture for the evolving 
semantic models of data definition, computation, 
inference, knowledge base and operational environ­
ment arising from project areas 2.1.2 and 3.3.2 need 
definition. 
3.3.4. Medium-term research on applications of new 
magnetic and semiconducutor storage media 
This list is not intended as exhaustive, but tries to 
identify current candidates, the selection criterion 
being those devices underpinning the requirements 
of advanced DBMS/KBMS best. 
— Discs with Thin Film Head Technologies. 
Research is required for very high density 
recording both over floppy and over rigid discs; 
research will concern both new recording modes 
(vertical, transverse, isotropic) and technology 
for basic components (heads, media, substrates). 
Topics could include vertically anisotropic 
media, thin film heads with very small gaps, 
probe heads, Hall effect or magneto-resistive 
sensors. Concentration will be on physical 
access techniques to achieve random access 
inclusive of latency in the range 2-3 msec and 
latency in the range of 1-2 msec. Capacity 
should be from 1-10 Gbytes and non-volatile. 
— Embedded Search Logic in Thin Film Heads. To 
achieve compact high performance disc systems 
development is needed of embedded parallel 
CMOS search logic in multiple thin film heads 
capable of parallel fuzzy search on multiple cri­
teria in file store and of byte write operation. 
— Non-Absolute Content Addressable Memory. 
Very large capacity fuzzy/non-deterministic/ 
probabilistic matching content addressed 
memory of capacity greater than 200 Mb. — Mixed Logic High Density RAM. Physical struc­
tures for word-wide memories, mixed logic and 
high density RAM on the same chip for ultra 
high speed storage/processing networks suitable 
for reduction on data flow networks. 
The initial emphasis here is to define practical 
requirements and technological opportunities early 
enough to influence the development of the new 
devices for the latter phases of ESPRIT. 
Proposals for work on new storage technologies are 
invited in Area 1.8 in the Microelectronics sub-pro­
gramme. 
3.3.5. Long-term Research on Optical and Biologi­
cal Storage 
There is considerable potential for large storage cap­
acity using optical or biological techniques. Optical 
discs are already demonstrating potential as read­
only memories. Biological methods of fabrication 
should allow very fine interconnection paths and 
thus highly compact construction. Current feature 
sizes used in RAM are of the order of 10 000 ang­
strom and are limited to 2-D construction. It is 
claimed that logic and storage elements of organic 
materials can be made with feature sizes of 20 ang­
strom and in 3-D structures using biological and 
genetic engineering construction techniques. 
Research is required to provide read-write facilities 
using such techniques as magneto-optic, thermo-
magnetic and amorphous crystal transitions. Basic 
research on materials is invited in Area 1.8; in this 
area of AIP proposals are invited for developments 
including parallel gigabyte memories, matricial 
read-write and internal codes. 
R&D Area 3.4.: Computer Architectures 
Description 
This R&D area investigates the potential for new 
forms of computer architecture. While the tradi­
tional von Neumann architecture has a number of 
serious disadvantages the programme allows a grad­
ual evolution of this well established architecture to 
extend the performance of established systems. 
However, VLSI technology provides the means of 
NoC 11/58 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
creating alternative architectures using a large num­
ber of parallel processors running concurrent tasks. 
There are a variety of such architectures and many 
different types of applications which would benefit 
from these multiple processor approaches. 
These alternatives cannot be considered as water­
tight compartments never influencing each other. In 
order to evaluate the alternative approaches, and the 
attributes, utility and performance of the demonstra­
tors which will be built, metrics for computer archi­
tectures will be studied. 
The results of this programme will provide a basis 
for the introduction of new computer architectures 
into appropriate application areas. In all these 
studies software aspects will play a central role. The 
impact of architecture evolution on programming 
environments will be carefully studied. Thereafter, 
an actual environment will be developed. 
R&D Topics 
The topics to be researched in this area are: 
3.4.1. Ultracomputer, Multiprocessor Machines 
3.4.2. Non von-Neumann Architectures 
— highly parallel computer architecture 
— dataflow machines 
— reduction machines 
— inference machines 
3.4.3. Programming environments for non von-
Neumann architectures 
3.4.4. Machine interconnection architectures 
3.4.1. Ultracomputer, Multiprocessor Machines 
(Type A) 
Description 
The availability of VLSI has provided a means of 
constructing machines with large numbers of inter­
connected computing elements capable of concur­rent operation. Each element is as powerful as 
machines currently in use. It is required to study 
architectures for such arrangements and identify 
their attributes, utility and performance in different 
applications. A demonstrator will be built capable 
of supporting one or more applications. The impact 
on software environment is a fundamental problem 
to be solved. The application will include large scale 
modelling and simulation (weather forecasting, 
hydrodynamics and economic modelling), as well as 
new algorithms for large vectorial and structure cal­
culations. 
Milestones 
Year 1985/86: 
— Feasibility study of design strategies. 
Year 1986/87: 
— Study and selection of architectural strategies. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Design and implementation of prototype. 
3.4.1.1. 'Message Passing Architectures and Des­
cription Systems' (Ref. 440: B/84) 
On the hypothesis that a message passing model of 
computation is the best way to achieve the capabilities 
of the next generation computers, the project will 
develop techniques for implementing message passing 
that overcome the deficiencies of currently existing 
implementations. These deficiencies not only concern 
performance or inadequate treatment of concurrency. 
One problem that will receive a lot of attention is per­
sistence: how can one create actor-systems that con­
tinue to exist instead of being turned off and 
reloaded? The project will construct a package of 
knowledge representation primitives which includes 
formalisms, advanced control structures, flexible primi­
tives for inheritance, and modules for implementing 
user interaction. These primitives will fully exploit the 
power of a message-passing framework. At a higher 
level, a description system will be designed and imple­
mented based on the knowledge representation primi­
tives. A description system is closer to natural com­
munication and therefore to advanced user interac­
tion. New styles of programming such as program­
ming by example will be demonstrated. At the end of 
the project, there will be: 
1) a solid implementation of message passing; 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/59 
2) techniques for exploiting specialised concurrent 
hardware to implement actors efficiently; 
3) a package of knowledge representation primitives, 
and 
4) a description system and related interaction tools. 
Proposals for A-type projects in area 3.4.1 are 
invited, together with additional B-type support pro­
jects. Candidate research themes for B-type propo­
sals include: 
— development of symbolic processing machines 
— optical computers 
— machine architectures to support actor-based 
languages 
— optimization of strongly pipelined structures 
— application to large-scale scientific calculations. 
3.4.2. Non-von Neumann Architectures (Type A) 
Description 
The availability of VLSI has provided a means of 
contructing machines with very large numbers (e.g. 
greater than 1000) of interconnected computing ele­
ments capable of concurrent operations. It is 
required to study interconnection architectures and 
special components for realistic and cost effective 
solutions. The application targets are signal recogni­
tion and understanding, large scale modelling and 
logic programming. This study looks at the exploita­
tion of interconnect strategies which will define an 
architecture and special associated components. A 
demonstrator will be built including the software to 
support the chosen languages. 
Data flow machines use the principle of single 
assignment i.e. they restrict the number of values of 
each manipulated object to one. The architecture is 
characterised by a parallel data-driven control struc­
ture and a 'by value' data mechanism. Data Flow 
offers the possibility of increased performance in 
AIP. This part of the project area will consider the 
attributes in a range of applications and provide a 
basis for design choice in the application of data 
flow machines. A demonstrator will be built. Impact 
on software will be examined. 
Reduction machines (well suited to the execution of 
applicative languages, such as pure LISP, Backus 
FP, KRC) can be demand-driven i.e. a function 
application is 'fired' when its result is required by a surrounding function application. The data mechan­
ism can be 'by value' (string reduction) or 'by refer­
ence' (graph reduction). 
Inference machines are special purpose machines 
dedicated to deductive operations. They are impor­
tant because logic programming is one of the foun­
dations of knowledge engineering and also because 
of the power of inference and pattern matching 
techniques in deductive systems used in expert sys­
tems. Currently inference mechanisms in languages 
like Prolog are realised through software on conven­
tional computers. Parallel execution of these lan­
guages is required. Appropriate hardware mechan­
isms will be proposed after study of related 
algorithms. 
Milestones 
(a) Highly Parallel Architecture: 
Year 1985/86: 
— Feasibility study and selection of interconnec­
tion strategies. 
Year 1986/87: 
— Simulations and definitions of basic VLSI com­
ponents. 
Year 1987/88: 
— VLSI component development and simulation. 
— Produce operational mock-ups. 
(b) Data Flow Machines: 
Year 1985/86: 
— Develop and simulate alternative architectures 
— Select application(s) and candidate architec­
ture^) for demonstrator. 
Year 1985/86: 
— Specify and design data flow computer demon­
strator. 
Year 1986/88: 
— Complete implementation of demonstrator. 
No C 11/60 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
Year 1988/89: 
— Make initial assessment of attributes, utility and 
performance. Relate results back to application 
studies. 
(c) Reduction Machines: 
Year 1985/86: 
— Select application(s) and candidate architec-
ture(s). 
Year 1986/87: 
— Design reduction mechanisms. 
Year 1987/89: 
— Implementation in application domain; evalua­
tion. 
(d) Inference Machines : 
Year 1985/86: 
— Specify parallel inference machine as research 
tool. 
Year 1986/87: 
— Implement parallel research tools. Select appli­
cations for detailed study. Select approach to 
design of experimental parallel inference 
machine. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Specify and design experimental parallel infer­
ence machine using results of 3.4.1, and 
3.4.2.Implement while continuing studies of 
mechanisms using research tool. 
3.4.2.1. 'Parallel Architectures and Languages for 
A IP — a VLSI Directed Approach' 
(Ref. 415 + 313: A/84) 
The prime objective of this project is to reduce the exe­
cution times required by A.L applications by a sub­
stantial factor. This project aims to exploit a high 
degree of concurrency involving a large number of 
identical processing elements implemented in VLSI. A 
major criterion for the design of such an architecture 
must be that the cost of parallelism remains less than 
its advantages, except possibly in the very worst cases. An integrated system with hardware and software is 
therefore proposed. Programming the system is the 
crucial problem. It should be possible to use the paral­
lelism of the hardware efficiently and at the same time 
to reason about the program. Ideally, a concurrent 
machine should support all three programming styles 
(object oriented, functional and logic) which will allow 
the full exploitation of concurrency, but the principles 
upon which such a machine could be based are not yet 
fully understood. All three styles will be explored 
through studies into machines which support each pro­
gramming style separately, and through common 
working groups which will explore several areas of 
general relevance. There will be working groups on 
semantics, proof techniques, specification and design, 
etc, and five subprojects investigating the design of 
object-oriented, functional (both data driven and 
demand driven) and logical machines separately, and 
a machine which combines logic and functional pro­
gramming. 
These subprojects have a lot in common: all are based 
on message passing between identical units, here 
called PCMs, consisting of communication hardware, 
processing hardware and local memory. In addition to 
the subprojects and working groups, an application 
study group will be formed to select applications with 
which the various styles may be evaluated and their 
suitability for various fields of application established. 
Finally, special attention will be given to the dissemi­
nation of the results obtained by the working groups. 
This will take the form of seminars and workshops in 
which a number of people outside the project will be 
invited to participate, both as presenters and 
attendees. 
Note: this large project addresses almost all the topics 
listed in area 3.4.2. 
In order to ensure adequate coverage of this 
extremely important set of topics, additional Type A 
proposals are invited, as are Type B proposals in the 
revelant research areas, including signal processing 
architectures, flexible topology and reliability. 
3.4.3. Programming environments for non-von Neu­
mann architectures (Type A) 
The environments for these new architectures, may 
have a structure quite different from conventional 
environments, and should offer facilities that assist 
the programmer in handling the implicit and explicit 
parallelism in the program. Of course a very close 
collaboration with the architecture studies of 3.4.2. 
is essential, and compatibility with the P.C.T.E 
(2.3.1.1) is highly desirable. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/61 
Milestones 
Year 1986/87: 
— identify facilities needed. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Feasibility study; identify design strategy. Study 
to what extent facilities can be common to the 
environments of the various parallel machines. 
Years 1988/89: 
— Design and implement prototype environment. 
Proposals are invited for A-type and supporting 
B-type projects, including study of compilation 
techniques for vectorial and other novel algorithms. 
Note that proposals for related work are invited in 
2.3.3.3. 
3.4.4. Machine connection architectures (Type A) 
While the changes in processor architecture may be 
dramatic, the changes in computer systems will be 
evolutionary, partly because of the need to utilise 
existing hardware and software and partly because 
the concept of a non-von Neumann system is not 
yet fully formulated. The way to achieve this evolu­
tion is by the continuous prototyping of closely 
cooperating computer systems to benefit the appli­
cation areas in ways such as improved performance, 
cost-effectiveness, ultra-reliability and graceful deg­
radation. 
The requirements are to establish the system archi­
tecture implications of the Office Systems and Com­
puter Integrated Manufacturing programmesandto-
taketheopportunities offered by developments in 
Microelectronics, as well as attempting to incorpor­
ate the moving boundary between hardware and 
software to ensure high-level end efficient imple­
mentations. 
In order to keep in step with advances, projects in 
this area should be designed to produce prototypes 
in a very short time. As this project attempts to bridge the gap between component development 
and system application, very close coordination 
with the other sub-programmes of Esprit will be 
essential. 
Programme 
Continuous production of prototypes in various 
areas, with individual systems rarely taking more 
than one year from initial specification to prototype 
implementation. 
Proposals are invited for Type A projects and for 
supporting Type B projects in this area. Candidate 
research themes include: 
— system architecture opportunities and problems 
caused by advances in Microelectronics, AIP 
and other areas of Esprit. 
— high speed bus development. 
— networking of heterogeneous systems. 
Note that related work is described in area 4.3.1.1 
and related proposals are requested in 4.2.1.1. and 
5.4.4. 
R&D Area 3.5: Design and System Aspects 
Description 
This R&D area covers the urgently needed stan­
dards, special specification and verification tech­
niques, design methods, general system methods, 
and catalogues of information and technical moni­
toring which are relevant to the other activities with 
the AIP sub-programme. 
There are two key objectives here: 
— to produce order out of the current diversity of 
approaches to AIP 
— to develop techniques for producing reliable 
and trust-worthy AIP systems and for maintain­
ing them as they adapt to changing circum­
stances. 
No C 11/62 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
Corresponding motivations exist in the Software 
Technology area and this activity will be co-ordi­
nated with 2.1.3; however certain features of AIP 
justify the emphasis here. These are: 
— the lack of any existing work which is attuned to 
AIP 
— the need for such work, in view of the complex­
ity, indeterminancy, adaptability and self-moni­
toring potential for AIP systems. 
3.5.1. A life cycle model of AIP systems (Type A) 
Description 
This task covers the aspects of: 
— Requirements definition and validation 
— Design 
— Implementation 
— Testing 
— Maintenance 
— Configuration and project management and 
their associated techniques. 
An important aspect of the approach which is 
adopted here is the introduction of a level of system 
specification intermediate between that of the exter­
nal requirements and the internal software and 
hardware specifications. This intermediate level 
should reflect the nature of AIP systems, adopting 
appropriate primitive notions and relationships for 
specifying inference techniques, knowledge repre­
sentations and other aspects, so that relevant AIP 
concepts can be described clearly in a way which 
may guide the design of software and hardware. 
However, it should be noted that the soft­
ware-hardware level and the AIP conceptual level 
are often tightly inter-connected, so that the formal­
isms for either cannot be laid down without contin­
ued reference to the limitations imposed by the 
other. 
The objective is to: 
— identify an adequate range of effective methods 
and techniques of AIP systems production and 
maintenance, giving reliable, secure and toler­
ant systems. 
— Provide tool support for these methods and 
techniques, assuming several levels of represen­
tation with incremental verification and valida­
tion. 
Milestones 
Year 1985/86: 
— Reference model of system development and 
evolution. Year 1986/87: 
— Identify cohesive techniques and generic tools. 
— Implement specific tools in a project environ­
ment. 
Year 1987/88: 
— Apply total Life Cycle Model to a representa­
tive (and possibly a focusing) project. 
Year 1988/89: 
— Update the method, techniques and tools fol­
lowing the practical evaluation, and publish 
final model. 
3.5.1.1. 'Design of Techniques and Tools to aid in 
the Analysis and Design of Knowledge 
Based Systems' (Ref 12 : A/83) 
The main objective of this project is to develop a stan­
dard method for the analysis and design of knowledge 
based systems. This will lead to the definition of a 
Knowledge Representation Formalism which could 
handle concepts with a high level of abstraction and 
with a sensible efficiency. In areas such as medical 
diagnosis, structural analysis and recipe generation 
there will be major applications, allowing evaluation 
of techniques and the design of a functional classifica­
tion of the different domains of human expertise. 
Proposals are invited for a further A-type project 
covering all of area 3.5.1; close liaison will be neces­
sary with area 2.2.4. Projects addressing individual 
parts of the life cycle, which should be prepared to 
act in concertation with other projects to cover the 
domain, are also invited. 
The R&D topics to be addressed in this area 
include: 
— Conventions for AIP Projects 
— Security/Confidentiality of Knowledge and 
Data in AIP Systems 
— State-of-the-art Intelligence Unit in Critical 
Basic Areas. 
Due to their supportive nature, these topics can be 
characterised as type B. For some of them, an 
explicit partnership with one or several of the most 
appropriate type A projects (e.g. other AIP projects, 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/63 
Software Technology) will be desirable in order to 
optimise overall synergy within ESPRIT. 
Related areas include 2.1.4.3, 2.3.3.4, 4.5 and 5.1 
3.5.2. Advanced interactive environment for AIP 
(Type A) 
This task will develop advanced environments to 
support the formal interactive style of program 
development, as investigated by tasks in 2.1.3.6. 
Work is not expected to start before 1987. 
Note that the work in the Software Technology area 
on environments for AIP is vital to progress in both 
areas so will be the subject of close liaison between 
them. 
R&D Area 3.6: Focusing Projects 
Concepts 
The previous five R&D areas cover individual 
aspects of the advanced information processing 
(AIP) field. In addition to detailed programmes of 
work relating to the basic techniques, it is vital to 
the success of Esprit that the programme eventually 
include a number of integrated inter-disciplinary 
projects that span not only aspects of AIP, but also 
the other areas of the ESPRIT programme. Thus, 
where appropriate, these should be merged with 
other sub-programmes to achieve the size required 
consistent with the interdisciplinary nature of the 
focusing project. This section is concerned with 
these 'focusing' projects, but at the present stage of 
ESPRIT it is not possible to identify inter-area pro­
jects, so focusing is restricted to the AIP area itself. 
It is intended that these projects should provide a 
set of goals that will act as foci for the interdiscipli­
nary aspects of the work. Although the goals should 
be clearly visible at all times, their non-achievement 
within the timescale should not be construed as fail­
ure since many of the rewards will come in the form 
of a large number of small developments in the dif­
ferent fields. As a concept, they have been endorsed 
by all sections of the ESPRIT community. Examples of criteria focusing projects are given in 
outline below. It should be stressed that these are 
merely examples chosen to illustrate the concept for 
focusing projects. It is important that the ESPRIT 
Programme include resources and effort to cover 
such projects. It is considered that initial focusing 
projects might well concentrate on preliminary 
studies for larger, strategic, demonstrator projects 
later in the programme. 
Criteria 
In formulating the criteria for choosing focusing 
projects it is possible to include wider aspects than 
those mentioned above. Some of the essential cri­
teria for such work are discussed below. However, 
an overall consideration of flexibility should allow 
this programme to proceed to best effect. 
(a) The project should indeed 'focus'. This could 
mean any combination of aspects such as: 
— it utilises and brings together results and 
findings from multiple other areas of 
ESPRIT, both from within AIP and outside 
it (e.g. Software Technology, Office Auto­
mation, etc.) 
— it combines and integrates results and find­
ings of other ESPRIT areas 
— it emphasises the interdependencies and 
anticipates and resolves potential conflicts 
between ESPRIT areas 
— it provides for a two-way interaction 
between its own area and other ESPRIT 
areas. 
(b) The project should be substantially realisable 
(feasible, realistic, achievable) within the pro­
posed time frame, and have a clearly identifi­
able end point with that time frame. 
(c) The project should at least exploit the state-of-
the-art, or rather be at the leading edge, or, at 
worst, promise to bring forward the state-of-
the-art substantially in ESPRIT. 
(d) Some focusing projects should have relevance 
for the public at large, such as promising to be 
socially beneficial, or being socially attractive. 
No C 11/64 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
(e) The project should identifiably feed back infor­
mation to other areas of ESPRIT, of two kinds: 
— technological/scientific information 
— 'realism' information. 
(f) The project should have an applied nature, 
rather than be concerned with pure science. 
(g) The project should result in at least a demon­
strable prototype. 
Example of large demonstrator (within A IP) 
A project with clear public impact could be defined 
in the area of health care, where the knowledge 
engineering results from sub-area 3.1, those on 
multi-sensor signal processing and speech recogni­
tion from 3.2, knowledge storage from 3.3, architec­
tures from 3.4 and project life-cycle from 3.5 could 
be brought together. 
Introduction to the Office Systems workplan 
THE OFFICE DOMAIN 
Information is an important instrument of competi­
tion. This concept is now widely recognised. Office 
Systems provide a major vehicle through which 
information can be applied as an aid to navigation 
through the present turbulent changes in business, 
technology, commerce and government. 
While the potential contribution of information 
technology to improve effectiveness can be easily 
recognised, the delivery of solutions to the informa­
tion problem areas is an entirely different matter. 
The problems are 'fuzzy' and frequently the solution 
processes appear to be artistic rather than scientific. 
The users of information frequently have little or no 
knowledge of the technological content and neces­
sary technical processes that are involved in pro­
cessing information. Programme for Area 3.6 
In Year 1985/86 B-type proposals are invited to 
carry out surveys which will elucidate the foreseea­
ble effects of the successfull implementation of 
information technologies in areas with clear public 
impact or with important implications for the 
quality of working life. The object of these surveys 
will be to define the requirements to be fulfilled by 
large demonstrator projects in the second phase of 
Esprit, and the management techniques which will 
be required to carry such projects through success­
fully in the multinational environment. 
In Years 1986/88 A-type proposals may be invited 
to combine the results of work in areas of the 
Microelectronics, Software Technology and AIP 
sub-programmes, and possibly in Office Systems 
and Computer Integrated Manufacturing. It is 
hoped that large demonstrator projects could be 
started with sufficiently strong support from all sec­
tions of the Esprit community, and with sufficiently 
thorough preparation from the preliminary focusing 
projects outlined above, to proceed with confidence 
to the public demonstration of the achievement of 
Esprit. 
The majority of users require solutions and not 
products. These solutions have to be reasonably 
complete and this implies that systems must be 
provided, not only in the sense of the interrelation­
ship of the technical components (both hardware 
and software) but also in terms of the functions that 
these components perform as an application that 
yields a solution. 
The challenges facing Office Systems development 
include: 
— Understanding and supporting the non-deter­
ministic tasks of a wide range of office workers 
and not just providing a technological update of 
traditional and limited office functions. 
— Achieving major improvements in human-sys­
tem interfaces that realistically allow productive 
use of office systems by a wide range of office 
workers. 
— The development of solution/system oriented 
approaches to office problems. Delivering prod­
uct elements and some services, and expecting SUBPROGRAMME 4 
OFFICE SYSTEMS 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/65 
the user to create the total own solution cannot 
continue. 
The market opportunity is large, particularly if the 
problems noted above can be solved. The European 
market is viewed by the IT industries of USA and 
Japan with great interest. Because of the size and 
homogeneity of the USA and Japanese markets, 
indigenous suppliers can develop sharply focused 
products, achieve economies of scale in their home 
markets, and then overwhelm foreign markets; such 
as Europe. Thus products and solutions from the 
USA and Japan, because of their wide acceptance, 
can establish de facto 'standards' that force Euro­
pean suppliers into a defensive copycat posture. 
The key European opportunity relates to the 
development of system solutions. The implications 
of European requirements must be that these solu­
tions have an adaptability, flexibility and inbuilt 
interworking capability that will be a real strength 
outside Europe. This will only be true if the applica­
tion of technology reflects a degree of user sensitiv­
ity in advance of our major competitors. 
Research aims of the subprogramme office system 
Research work in the field of Office Systems can be 
characterized as follows: on the basis of fundamen­
tal and methodological developments in VLSI, soft­
ware technology, and advanced information pro­
cessing and some other fields, integrated and 
applied system solutions are developed which take 
into consideration user requirements and foresee­
able modifications in the technical, social and 
economical field. 
Office Systems are the key elements in the develop­
ment from classical data processing to integrated 
information processing in administrations and 
industrial and service enterprises, by which the 
future work environment will be characterized. For 
that purpose, systems and communication networks 
with standardized interfaces are necessary. 
In developing these systems which are very impor­
tant for our industrial companies, aspects of human 
factors have to be considered in the early stages of 
planning. Only in this way can we ensure that the 
systems will be accepted later on by the users and 
that economic expectation will also be met. Euro­
pean industry is particularly well suited for this 
development because of its historical and cultural 
tradition. Taking into account the abovementioned integrated 
approach, the subprogramme has been divided into 
five research areas. The aims are: 
1. Office system science and human factors 
(a) To analyze current and predicted office activi­
ties to determine how information technology 
might be applied to improve the effectiveness of 
office work and organization and of the enter­
prise as a whole. Besides automation of various 
functions and the use of knowledge-based 
methods, this means better support particularly 
for clerks, professional and managerial staff in 
executing their judgemental tasks. 
(b) To improve understanding of human factors in 
the office and to ensure high performance of 
users when interacting with the systems, whilst 
at the same time offering optimal working con­
ditions and ensuring adequate organization and 
individual acceptance. 
2. Advanced workstations and human-machine 
interfaces 
To establish major new human-machine interface 
technologies, peripheral technologies and document 
representation technologies and information mani­
pulation relevant to the development of advanced 
office work-stations for use in advanced office sys­
tems. 
3. Communication systems 
To create the basic technologies required for advan-
cedoffice communication systems including tech­
nical fundamentals in communication systems 
architecture, optical technologies as a particularly 
significant technology, the management of resources 
connected by networks, and system aspects of value 
added services. 
4. Advanced multi-media storage and retrieval 
systems 
To acquire the system and applications expertise 
related to storage and retrieval of all forms of office 
information in electronic storage systems in a user 
organization in an adequate way. 
5. Integrated office information systems 
To create the possibility to check the validity of the 
total information concepts that are advocated, in 
environments that are realistic and allow quantitive 
evaluation. 
NoC 11/66 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
INTERDEPENDENCES WITH OTHER RESEARCH 
AREAS 
Micro-electronics is a provider of basic technologies 
and hardware components to be used in office sys­
tems. General requirement characteristics are high 
speeds and capacities, very high reliability, and flex­
ibility of the design processes. The need for basic 
technologies development is not confined to pure 
micro-electronics: opto-electronic technologies for 
transmission, storage and display that may increase 
capacity while reducing physical volume and price 
are equally as important. 
Software technology is to provide an environment 
and the tools that should improve control of the off­
ice application development process. This is a prere­
quisite for the development and maintenance of the 
enormously complex future applications, if func­
tional, performance and reliability requirements are 
to be met at acceptable cost. 
The Advanced Information Processing area 
embraces researches into technologies and proce­
dures that will be adopted directly in the system 
integration processes that are characteristic for the 
office systems programme. Of particular importance 
are the firm establishment of the discipline of know­
ledge based or 'intelligent' methods to solve prob­
lems, as well as the development of computers that 
are capable of processing vast amounts of informa­
tion in real time, or fast enough to please the human 
user. 
In Computer Integrated Manufacturing, certain 
techniques will be developed to high degrees of per­
fection, for instance those that adapt the computer 
systems to the dynamic physical environments in 
plants. Undoubtedly, the techniques developed will 
spin off to such domains as office system security 
and human-machine interfaces. 
R&D area 4.1: Office systems science and human 
factors 
DESCRIPTION 
This research programme has been devised to give a 
better understanding of the office environment. Off­
ices are the 'nervous system' of any enterprise. 
These must be organized, staffed and equipped for 
effective and efficient operation, and interfaced 
with other branches of the enterprise (such as 
research laboratories and manufacturing) and the 
external environment. At present the understanding of this field is patchy. 
There is no formal science of office automation as 
there is for production automation. This pro­
gramme, however, makes possible coherent 
approaches to on the problems, ranging from empir­
ical studies to consistent operational classifications 
and definition of computer-based analysis and 
design tools. 
Consistent with this approach, the main areas iden­
tified are (a) office systems analysis, (b) office sys­
tems design, (c) human factors and (d) the possible 
application of knowledge based methods. The ana­
lysis part of the programme delivers useful input for 
the design oriented phases. 
It is evident that the incorporation of human fac­
tors, especially into a technology-oriented pro­
gramme is an essential prerequisite for effective use 
and a broad acceptance of the envisaged systems 
and thus for their final economic success. The 
research programme therefore includes specific 
research projects on human factors related to the 
office environment and this leads to programmes for 
cognitive aspects together with work structuring, 
qualification and training. Human factors laborato­
ries are also seen as key competence centers and 
katalysers, offering the possibility of unbiaised judg­
ment about experimental systems and on commer­
cial products. 
R&D AREA TOPICS 
The topics to be studied in this area include: 
4.1.1. Office systems analysis 
— operational and functional analysis of 
office requirements 
— benefits analysis 
— a glossary of agreed terminology 
— analysis of human tasks within the office 
4.1.2. Office systems design 
— office system design methodology 
— modelling and simulation of office infor­
mation systems 
— transaction monitor 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/67 
— deterministic and judgemental functions 
— techniques for user interface design 
4.1.3. Human factors 
— human factors laboratories (type A) 
— human-machine cognitive compatibility 
— qualification and work 
— user aids and learning tools 
— human-machine interface specification 
language 
— natural language interpretation and prod­
uction 
TOPIC DESCRIPTIONS 
4.1.1. Office systems analysis 
4.1.1.1. Operational and functional analysis of 
office requirements. 
Standard functions in an office are identified to 
reduce the requirements for customization. A classi­
fication of functions and their interdependencies is 
to provide clues for technological developments. 
4.1.1.1.1. 'Functional analysis of office require­
ments'(Ref 56 : B/83). 
The primary goal of this project is the investigation 
and analysis of office functions through the applica­
tion of a new method being developed. The project will 
provide guidelines for the evaluation of available 
office systems, and it will support the manufacturers 
choice of facilities to be integrated into the system. 
The project includes development of methods to assess 
key qualitative and quantitative benefits to be gained 
through the use of computer-based office systems. 
The method developed will be applied to the analysis 
of information system requirements and to informa­
tion technology assessment for important OS applica­
tion domains. 
B-type proposals will be checked against on-going 
work. 4.1.1.2. Benefits analysis. 
This topic concerns both financially non-quantifia­
ble factors (e.g. speed as compared to flexibility), as 
well as both concrete and abstract benefits (e.g. cost 
as compared to job satisfaction). 
B-Type proposals will be checked against on-going 
work. 
4.1.1.3. A glossary of agreed terminology. 
Provision of a glossary on office system science is a 
prerequisite for harmonization and standardization 
of European research in the field. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.1.1.4. Analysis of human tasks within the office. 
Projects shall produce a method for the analysis of 
human tasks within an office, in quantitative and 
qualitative terms. The method should be used to 
investigate human activities in a representative 
sample of office types and to predict the changes in 
task structure that could occur due to the introduc­
tion of integrated office systems. 
New B-Type proposals are invited in this area. 
4.1.2. Office systems design 
4.1.2.1. Office system design methodology. 
Overall design methodologies of computer-based 
office systems will be studied, implemented and the 
results validated in trial systems. The effect of 
human factors will be taken into account. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.1.2.2. Modelling and simulating of office informa­
tion systems 
Formal methods for the specification of office infor­
mation systems; modelling and simulation of these 
systems. 
No C 11/68 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
4.1.2.2.1. 'Office support systems analysis and 
design' (Ref 286 + 285: B/84). 
The project aims to create a model for an integrated 
office system, based on the most recent studies, but 
going as far as possible in a total integration. In parti­
cular the following subjects will be addressed: model­
ling office tasks and activities, developing a language 
(grammar and vocabulary), developing a method for 
the specification and measurement of performance, 
producing design procedures for office system, assess­
ing requirements for user-oriented information man­
agement systems. 
B-Type proposals will be checked against on-going 
work. 
4.1.2.3. Transaction monitor. 
Description and definition of a system monitoring 
the transactions traffic in an office. 
B-Type proposals are invited. 
4.1.2.4. Deterministic and judgemental functions. 
The specification of tools for the implementation of 
automatic, semi-automatic or human-interactive 
support processes in office systems applications. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.1.2.5. Techniques for user interface design. 
Designers of office systems need to draw upon 
knowledge about techniques (e.g. icons, windows, 
menu selection, voice command, etc) for human-
computer interaction. The systematic specification 
and classification (with respect to domain of appli­
cation) of such existing and required techniques is 
necessary, to assist designers and to identify poten­
tial for new techniques. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.1.3. Human factors 
4.1.3.1. Human factors laboratories, (type A) 
This topic is concerned with the establishment of 
close cooperation of European Human factors 
laboratories, where research can be fruitfully and economically conducted, guidelines be developed, 
R&D personnel trained and advice given to 
development laboratories. 
The work aims at the creation of managerial, organi­
sational and legal structures to formalize the cooper­
ation and the elaboration of a well-selected set of 
research topics by the laboratories cooperating and 
the distribution of the experiences gained. 
Programme (—) and Intermediate Objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— Elaboration of managerial, organizational and 
legal structures that consolidate the coopera­
tion; 
— Start of cooperation work in selected research 
areas. 
* 12th month: Establishment of managerial, organ­
isation and legal structures; 
Years 2 to 5: 
— Elaboration of training programmes, setting up 
and (re)allocation of specific research tasks 
among the partners, the elaboration of proce­
dures for internal and external consultation, the 
execution of selected research. 
— Development of standardized test — and eval­
uation procedures for Office Systems 
* 24th month: Establishment of the first training 
programme in human factors; 
* 48th month: Results of specific human factors 
research available. 
4.1.3.1.1. Human factor laboratories in information 
technologies' (Ref. 385 + 455 + 560: 
A/84). 
The project aims at providing a focussing point for 
human factors activities in Europe. Three major fields 
of activity can be distinguished: 
The development of a methodology for the integration 
of Human Factors knowledge into IT products as an 
essential contribution to all parts of the design process 
cycle. 
The expertise that will find its way into 1) will be 
gained in: 
Investigation of interaction modes of the man/mach­
ine interface, and construction of a multi-modal MMI 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/69 
to achieve optimal interplay from the point of view of 
human factors. 
The expertise gained in 1) and 2) will be made avail­
able to the European industry as a whole by a) devel­
oping a software package for an integrated decision 
support system and b) by organising a broad pro­
gramme of publications, seminars, workshops and 
consultancy activities throughout European IT indus­
try. 
In the pursuance of these objectives, the primary sub­
ject for study will be how people use information and 
for what purposes. User reactions to existing equip­
ment will provide essential evidence for such studies. 
The output of the work is expected to be an under­
standing of intrinsic human requirements independent 
of equipment, that can be applied at every stage in 
product design from abstract conception to the resolu­
tion of concrete design issues. There will be explicit 
recognition that as a consequence of the open-ended 
nature of the human use of information, conscious 
attention must be given to the interface between an 
information system and its human designers as well 
as its users. Some emphasis is given to user learning 
processes and their support by means of IT systems. 
Proposals are invited that contribute to the on-going 
work. 
4.1.3.2. Human-machine cognitive compatibility. 
To develop and formalize description methods for 
cognitive task representation and problem-solving 
processes for knowledge workers. 
4.1.3.2.1. 'Cognitive simulator for user interface 
design' (Ref 234 : B/84). 
This two-year project is aimed at the development of a 
simulation tool to assist designers in assessing the 
human cognitive compatability of particular interface 
designs for comparative purposes. Deliverables include 
the software package and user guide with a review of 
cognitive modelling and dialogue design guidelines 
derived from validation trials. The produced software 
must be compatible with the results of standarisation 
of e.g. operating systems. 
No new proposals are invited. 4.1.3.3. Qualification and work. 
The impact of the introduction of office systems on 
user qualification has to be studied; methods to 
increase user skill, especially in the sense of self-
improvement by the user, should be implemented 
and evaluated. 
B-Type proposals are invited. 
4.1.3.4. User aids and learning tools. 
The services, accessible for the user, especially 
on-line learning and help functions, will be investi­
gated, defined and tested from a human factors 
point of view. Special emphasis shall be given to the 
tool character of the services. 
B-Type proposals invited. 
4.1.3.5. Human-machine interface specification lan­
guage. 
In order to study the full range of cognitive and 
physical interfaces between humans and integrated 
office systems, a language for the specification of 
the human-machine interface shall be defined, that 
will increae the effectiveness and efficiency of the 
study and the design of interfaces. 
B-Type proposals are invited. 
4.1.3.6. Natural language interpretation and produc­
tion. 
The aspects of natural language usage in the office 
environment are to be studied, in connection with 
automated office information systems. This includes 
the parallel usage of a number of natural languages. 
Guidelines shall be given as to how the problems 
that are identified can be solved. Solutions may be 
demonstrated by suitable experiments of limited 
scope. 
B-Type proposals are invited. 
R&D Area 4.2: Advanced workstations and 
human-machine interfaces 
DESCRIPTION 
The workstation is the user's gateway to the office 
system. User acceptance and user performance 
NoC 11/70 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
depend on the design of the corresponding human-
machine interface. 
The most important channel for information input 
to the human user is the visual channel. This chan­
nel, as well as the bi-directional vocal channel, have 
evolved to provide information for motoric activi­
ties which should be adequately integrated in oper­
ating the interface. In consequence, VDU's and 
touch keyboards and speech receptors will emerge 
to form an integrated input/output device suitable 
to manipulate text and images by direct manual and 
vocal control. Preferably the screens should have the 
dimensions and portability of paper (electronic 
paper). Another approach to a more comfortable 
'visual input' will be the large screen display. The 
need for multi-functional capabilities will require 
the development of devices which allow graphic 
input and editing, on-line handwriting and ideo-
grammatic conversation. 
As long as there is no portable paperlike display, 
printing will be necessary and the need will be grow­
ing for faster, more versatile (text, graphic, colour) 
printers at low cost. 
The provision of human-machine interfaces which 
support the complete range of functions tradition­
ally carried out by pen or paper is necessary. 
A high proportion of telephone or face-to-face com­
munication indicates that visual and spoken infor­
mation will be preferred whenever it is applicable. 
Visual communication will require the development 
of high definition colour video scanning devices 
with the necessary processing capabilities for effi­
cient storage and transmission and the use of the 
multifunction flat panel display. 
The vocal channel cannot handle as much informa­
tion as the visual channel but is our most efficient 
carrier of natural language. Voice communication 
will require the development of sophisticated pro­
cessing for improving the acoustic environment, and 
the development of coding schemes. Voice com­
munication between man and the office system will 
require the development of efficient speech recogni­
tion and of a natural speech synthesizer. 
An important aspect of facilitating the standardiza­
tion of the interface with the human world and the 
paper world is easy-to-use formalized languages. 
These are to be designed in a way which allows the 
user, rather than the computer professional, to spe­
cify his needs directly to the system. The implementations and testing of user decision 
support functions are considered to be imbedded in 
the workstation. Availability of these functions is 
supposed to be a key-factor in the competition 
among office products. 
The development of specific system interface com­
ponents should lead to a general architecture which 
will allow the integration of the subsystems in an 
architecturally homogenous solution. Although the 
work items are phrased in terms of integration into a 
physical workstation, proposals should not neces­
sarily be confined to those which assume that all the 
associated functionality is resident in the worksta­
tion. Solutions involving distributed functionality 
accessed over communication links are equally rel­
evant. Connections to local area networks and/or 
public networks should be considered. 
Much of the software that supports the user will 
reside in the workstation. Any rules that are, or will 
be, agreed upon in order to improve portability of 
software, should be implemented. This applies as 
well to rules and agreements with respect to other 
aspects of the system. 
R&D AREA TOPICS 
The following R&D topics are identified: 
4.2.1. System aspects 
— System aspects of workstation design 
(type A) 
— Workstation security 
— Advanced multi-media human-machine 
interfaces 
4.2.2. Vision 
— vision interface (type A) 
— flat panel workstation design (type A) 
— high resolution video imager 
— image coding 
4.2.3. Paper 
— paper interface (type A) 
— advanced scanner 
— advanced printer 
— microfilm interface 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/71 
— graphics coding 
— graphics recognition 
— intelligent graphics recognition 
4.2.4. Speech 
— speech interface (type A) 
— speech coding 
— speech recognition 
— speech synthesis 
— intelligent speech recognition. 
4.2.5. Office languages & procedures 
— office document architectures and lan­
guages 
— office interface languages 
— multi-media document manipulation 
— intelligent user function support 
— user to user multimedia communication 
TOPIC DESCRIPTIONS 
4.2.1. System aspects 
4.2.1.1. System aspects of workstation design. 
(type A) 
The elaboration of a general architecture which will 
allow the integration of the subsystems handling the 
multimedia input/output (viz. vision, paper, speech, 
language), the filing subsystems, expert systems and 
the network interfaces in an architecturally homo­
genous workstation both from the hardware, the 
software and the human factors point of view. This 
includes design of interfaces based on new technical 
solutions for user input/output. 
Prototypes shall be developed and tested thoroughly 
in adequate environments and in sufficient numbers 
to allow qualitative and quantitative evaluation on a 
statistically sound basis. 
Workstation is a generic term for a range of devices 
— including software — that serve as the active 
interface of the information system with the human 
user in a wide range of applications. For reasons of 
effectiveness of this programme, the projects 
selected are likely to address wide application areas 
or applications with versatile requirements. 
A special case that required rapid development 
because of it's utility for the R&D itself is the 
research workstation, that itself may be an experi­
mental prototype for another generation of office 
workstations. Programme (—) and Intermediate Objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— definition of a model of human-machine inter­
action; 
— definition of computer performance, storage 
requirements; 
— definition of the requirements of advanced 
interfaces; 
— definition of workstation architecture, research 
workstation definition; 
— impact on external communication services (if 
any) 
* 12th month: specification of experimental work­
station architecture; 
Year 2: 
— assembly of subsystems and start software 
development for experimental workstation and 
research workstation. 
* 24th month: experimental workstation opera­
tional; 
Year 3: 
— completion of software experimental worksta­
tion and research workstation; 
— test of workstation; evaluation of results. 
* 36th month: experimental and research worksta­
tion evaluation; 
Year 4: 
— continued evaluation of experimental worksta­
tion in a number of environments (links with 
network and servers required); 
— definition and construction of advanced work­
station interface to multimedia input/output, 
filing system, network etc ... 
— completion of language interface. 
* 48th month: specification of advanced worksta­
tion interface (multimedia network); 
Year 5: 
— assembly of advanced workstation; 
— identification of test-sites, requirements. 
* 60th month: advanced workstation operational. 
4.2.1.1.1. 'Secure open multimedia integrated work­
station ' (Ref. 367+347: A/84). 
The project involves the design and implementation of 
an office workstation (WS) which is based on the 
'open systems' concept allowing the generation of 
standard protocols for communication media. It is 
thus possible to link the WS with different types of 
networks and with ISDN. The WS will be capable of 
NoC 11/72 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
processing different types of information including: 
text, fixed and moving images, graphics, voice and 
hand drawings. The WS will use a network-oriented 
operating system to control multiwindows and a distri­
buted database management system. Its main 'hard­
ware' parts will involve: a 32-bit CPU, intermediate 
capacity of disk, high resolution screen, mouse, cam­
era, digitizer and compressor of speech, loudspeaker, 
optical character scanner and appropriate networking 
circuits. These will be complemented by a device and 
procedures to control access. 
A-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.1.2. Workstation security 
This area concerns the specifications and implemen­
tation of severe security requirements, at the work­
station level, including user access and authorisa­
tion. This will also provide protection of confiden­
tial information. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.1.3. Advanced multi-media user interfaces. 
The project involves the design and development of 
an experimental input/output device as part of a 
multimedia integrated workstation. The interface 
should provide the user-dialogue in simulation of 
office procedures, definition of office routines and 
the execution of advanced office tasks. 
4.2.1.3.1. 'Intelligent workstation' (Ref. 82: B/83). 
The goal of this project is to provide the office worker 
with an integrated workstation which is inexpensive 
enough and which can provide sophisticated services 
ranging from speech and graphics to expert level deci­
sion aids and automated report generation. The pro­
totype workstation to be developed will be tested in 
environments providing communication facilities and 
connected file servers (see also area 4.2.5.2). 
B-type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against on-going projects. 4.2.2. Vision 
4.2.2.1. Vision interface (type A) 
The aim is to develop the advanced hardware and 
software that allows the digitization, coding, mani­
pulation, decoding, visual presentation of images. 
An important consideration concerns the user 
acceptance of the image quality and the manipula­
tion procedures for images. Colour, brightness, reso­
lution and grey levels are important aspects in 
promoting human friendliness. 
A substantial part of the research on vision is speci­
fied under flat panel workstation design. 
Programme (—) and intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— state-of-the-art study in image and video (entry, 
manipulation, storage, transmission 
— specification of still video codec (64 kbit/s) 
— specification of image manipulation functions 
at the user interface 
— analysis of technological implications of video­
conferencing requirements 
— analysis of moving video requirements in enter­
prises 
— specification of moving video codec (256 kbit/s) 
Year 2: 
— implementation of still video codec (64 kbit/s) 
— implementation of image manipulation func­
tions 
— specification of videoconference experiment 
— specification of a moving video information 
system 
— analysis of impact of office document architec­
tures 
* 18 months: image handling state-of-the-art study 
* 21 months: still video codec experimental proto­
type (64 kbit/s) 
* 24 months: moving video requirements study 
* 24 months: videoconferencing technological 
implications study 
* 24 months: image handling at the user interface, 
experimental prototype 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/73 
Year 3: 
— continuing work on human friendly image 
handling 
— requirements analysis for image generation in 
offices 
— implementation of moving video information 
system 
* 30 months: moving video codec (256 kbits/s) 
* 36 months: videoconference demonstration 
Year 4: 
— development of advanced image handling sys­
tem 
— integration of image generation software 
* 48 months: moving video system demonstration 
Year 5: 
— continuing developments 
* 60 months: demonstration of advanced compre­
hensive image handling system 
* 60 months: demonstration of small scale system, 
integrating most aspects of image and 
moving video: entry, storage, com­
munication, generation and manipu­
lation. 
4.2.2.1.1. 'Interactive handling of digitized images 
at the user interface' (Ref. 79 : B/83). 
This project will cover the different aspects of picture 
handling at the user interface in an office environment 
: processing, storage, presentation and manipulation. 
Among the aims of the project are the identification of 
user needs for picture handling in a multi-media inter­
face, and the development of uniform descriptors for 
the picture properties. 
4.2.2.1.2. 'Modelling and simulation of the visual 
characteristics of modern display technol­
ogies under office work conditions' 
(Ref. 612 : B/84). 
The project aims at designing, engineering and build­
ing a simulator in order to test properties of the dis­
plays based upon new technologies. Specific objectives 
are: comparison of displays simulated according to 
user acceptability criteria; conducting a limited num­
ber of ergonomic experiments designed to simulate prolonged office work conditions to obtain more 
insight into architectural and technology factors 
related to quality and 'visual confort'. 
A-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.2.2. Flat panel workstation design, (type A) 
Objectives 
The objective is to contribute, through the emerg­
ence a variety of advanced flat panels, to the 
improvement of ergonomy and cost-effectiveness of 
O.S. workstations, and to the re-evaluation of the 
workstation concept that will lead to several classes 
of workstations such as 'classical' multi-media 
workstations, large wall displays and planning-
panels, mobile workstations, write-view tablets, etc. 
The objective is to achieve these goals in the 
medium and long term by a wide research pro­
gramme that leads to a series of experimental proto­
types of such stations. 
The results of intensive research on new display 
technologies suggest, that a series of displays will 
become available with a variety of steadily improv­
ing characteristics in terms of size, resolution, speed, 
colour, grey levels, direct data entry, energy con­
sumption, robustness, viewing angles, price. 
Programme (—) and intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— classifying future (work)stations incorporating 
flat panel technologies 
— identification of display characteristics needed 
for a first generation of prototypes (definition, 
colour, grey levels, direct data entry) 
— identification of the state-of-the-art basic tech­
nologies necessary to satisfy the identified 
requirements 
— trade-off and adjustment of requirements and 
available basic technologies, leading to display 
specifications for prototyping 
— feeding results of analysis of appropriate basic 
technology research into a future generation of 
flat displays 
* 12 months: classification of future flat panel 
(work)stations 
NoC 11/74 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
Year 2: 
— completion of first generation experimental pro­
totypes of flat display stations based on avail­
able technology 
Year 3: 
— test and evaluation of the experimental worksta­
tions integrating the first generation prototypes 
of flat displays 
— identification of improvements to be made for 
next generation flat display prototypes 
— establishment of specifications of a second 
generation of flat panel display prototypes 
* 25 months: demonstration of first experimental 
flat panel workstations 
* 36 months: updated classification of future flat 
panel (work)stations 
Year 4: 
— prototyping the second generation of flat panel 
display (work)stations 
Year 5: 
— completing the integration of the second gener­
ation of flat display prototypes 
* 50 months: demonstration of second generation 
flat panel (work)stations 
A-type and B-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.2.3. High resolution video imager. 
The research into high resolution scanners and their 
integration into office information systems. 
B-Type proposals invited. 
4.2.2.4. Image coding. 
Devices for bit-rate reduction of video signals to 
64 kb/s and 256 kb/s. 
B-Type proposals invited. 
4.2.3. Paper 
4.2.3.1. Paper interface (type A). 
The development of devices for the scanning, the 
hard copying of graphic information (like typewrit­ten, printed, handwritten and combination thereof; 
including text and images of various kinds), and the 
processing at different levels (e.g. uncoded digital 
I/O, coding with redundancy reduction etc....) 
Programme (—) and Intermediate Objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— study of the state-of-the-art of the technology 
for scanners; bit-map printers, graphics coding 
and recognition 
— specification of omnifont recognizer 
— specification of graphics coder. 
Year 2: 
— specification of a multicolour scanner 
— specification of a multicolour printer 
— realization of omnifont character recognition. 
* 24th months: optical character recognizers. 
Year 3: 
— development of coding algorithms 
— development of a multicolour scanner. 
* 36th months: demonstration of scanner. 
Year 4: 
— development of a graphics coder 
— development of multifont character recognition 
— development of experimental multicolour 
printer. 
* 48th months: demonstration of multicolour 
printer. 
Year 5: 
— development of a handwriting recognizer 
— development of a multicolour printer-scanner. 
* 60th months: demonstration of handwriting 
recognition; demonstration of mul­
ticolour printer-scanner. 
4.2.3.1.1. 'Thepaper interface' (Ref. 295: A/84). 
This project addresses the role of paper and paper-
related processes in the context of advanced electronic 
office systems. Research will be conducted into tech­
niques that efficiently handle information on paper, 
and that will promote the ultimate reduction of paper 
use. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/75 
Particular techniques considered are: 
— the electronic reading of previously prepared 
paper documents to encode image, and encode 
and recognize text and graphics; 
— electronic representation of documents regardless 
of the original means of creation; 
— the processing to reproduce an electronic docu­
ment for different output media (soft copy, hard 
copy, and transmission); 
— the encoding and recognition in real time of tex­
tual and graphical information as typically prod­
uced by man. 
The results will be implemented in a research machine 
for the purposes of evaluation and demonstration. 
Proposals contributing to the existing project may 
be submitted. 
4.2.3.2. Advanced scanner 
The characteristics of the scanner should meet the 
physiological requirements for a continuous visual 
impression: a minimum of 50grey levels, true col­
ours and a resolution corresponding to the type of 
input. For A 4 documents, this implies at least 8 pix­
els/mm. 
B-Type proposals are invited. 
4.2.3.3. Advanced printer. 
The characteristics of the printer should meet phy­
siological requirements for a continuous visual 
impression: a resolution sufficient to translate via 
halftoning a minimum of 50 grey levels or true col­
our intensities, with at least 6 pixels/mm. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.3.4. Microfilm interface 
The objective is the development of advanced scan­
ners and digital production for microfilm/microf­
iche, with a resolution corresponding to the sup­
ported documents: a minimum of 8 pixels/mm for 
A 4 facsimile documents. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.3.5. Graphics coding 
Hardware implemented intelligent coding algo­
rithms with very high compression ratio. B-Type proposals are invited. 
4.2.3.6. Graphics recognition 
Algorithms for the recognition of omnifont and 
multifont characters, handwriting and line graphics. 
B-Type proposals are invited. 
4.2.3.7. Intelligent graphics recognition 
Identification and implementation of appropriate 
level of proven knowledge based methods systems 
to remove recognition ambiguities by post-process­
ing of static and dynamic recognition algorithms. 
The enhanced recognition of handwriting has a 
particular interest. 
B-Type proposals are invited. 
4.2.4. Speech 
4.2.4.1. Speech interface (Type A). 
The development and evaluation of devices and 
functions for the processing of human speech to and 
from the workstation. The R&D will be aiming at 
reliable recognition and coding algorithms and 
high-quality speech output, guaranteeing user 
acceptance of the speech interface. 
The recognition process shall be enhanced by inte­
grating knowledge based techniques, to a level of 
1 000 words recognition of isolated words in limited 
application domains. 
To support the research on speech processing, data 
banks are to be set up that contain relevant linguis­
tic information: in it's orthographic, phonetic and 
spoken form. 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— specification of speaker independent recogni­
tion of isolated words. 
— specification of software for speech synthesis. 
Year 2: 
— demonstration of feasibility of speech synthesis 
NoC 11/76 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
— implementation of speaker independent recog­
nition of connected speech. 
— evaluation of knowledge-based techniques rel­
evant for the recognition process 
* 24th month: speaker independent isolated word 
recognizer for limited (100-200 
words) vocabularies; hardware 
implemented speech synthesizers for 
one language; 16 kb/s codec. 
Year 3: 
— implementation of 8-4 kb/s codec 
— demonstration of feasibilty of speech synthesis 
in all EC languages, Spanish and Japanese 
— specification of speech recognition in all EC 
languages, Spanish and Japanese. 
* 36th month: speaker independent isolated word 
recognizer for limited vocabularies 
in at least three languages. 
Year 4: 
— implementation of 2,4 kb/s codec 
— specification of speaker independent speech 
recognition of connected speech 
— implementation of speech synthesizer for at 
least three languages. 
* 48th month: speaker independent connected 
speech recognizer for restricted syn­
tax speech; hardware implemented 
speech synthesis for at least three 
languages; 2,4 kb/s codec. 
Year 5: 
— integration of knowledge-based recognition 
* 60th month: 1 000 words isolated word recog­
nizer for limited application 
domains 
4.2.4.1.1. 'Speech interface at office workstations 
(SPIN)' (Ref. 64 + 303 + 340: A/83/84). 
The objective of this project is to develop the basic 
components of, and integrate these into, a comprehen­
sive speech interface at the workstation. The compo­
nents are: speech analysis, speech recognition, speaker 
verification, speech coding and decoding, and speech 
synthesis. 
For the integration of the components it is important 
to have an understanding of the usage of the speech in human-machine communication, and the quality/ 
functionality aspects that make that the interface is 
accepted by the human users. These two aspects will 
be studied extensively. 
As concerns the coverage of different natural lan­
guages, these are at present: Italian, French, Dutch 
and German. 
4.2.4.1.2. 'Investigation into the effective use of 
speech at the human-machine interface' 
(Ref. 449: B/84). 
This project will identify the requirements for effective 
voice interfaces in particular for CAD/CAM/CAE 
workstations. The partners are user research associa­
tions, end users, and firms that are suppliers in the 
voice and computer fields. 
The project results are fundamental for a number of 
other projects, in particular those dealing with the 
natural speech and language. 
Proposals submitted should contribute to the ongo­
ing projects. 
4.2.4.2. Speech coding. 
Hardware implemented algorithm for speech bit rate 
compression to 16, 8, 4 and 2,4 kb/s respectively. 
B-type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against ongoing work. 
4.2.4.3. Speech recognition. 
Recognition of speaker independent isolated words 
and speaker dependent and speaker independent 
connected speech. 
B-type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against ongoing work. 
4.2.4.4. Speech synthesis. 
Text-to-speech synthesis of satisfactory naturalness 
and resolution quality. 
B-type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against ongoing work. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/77 
4.2.4.5. Intelligent speech recognition. 
Identification and implementation of appropriate 
knowledge based language techniques to remove 
recognition ambiguities by post-processing of 
speech input using real time recognition algorithms. 
4.2.4.5.1. 'Linguistic analysis of the European lan­
guages'(Ref. 291: B/84). 
The final objective of this project, that will start with a 
specification phase, is to provide in the form of com­
puter data files and of computer method files coded in 
high level language, the following concerning a num­
ber of European languages: 
dictionary lemmata, flections, grammatical catego­
ries; 
algorithms and tables for converting the orthographic 
form into the phonetic one and vice-versa; 
algorithms and tables for the word stress assignment; 
statistics, ranking lemmata and flections by frequency 
of use; 
texts, suitable for extracting further statistical infor­
mation. 
The project results are fundamental for a number of 
other projects, in particular those dealing with the 
natural speech and language. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.5. Office languages and procedures 
4.2.5.1. Office document architectures and lan­
guages. 
Definition and implementation of a family of for­
mal architectures and languages to represent docu­
ments, as well as translators between such lan­
guages. Acceleration of the standardization in this 
area is a key factor for the advancement of other 
ESPRIT projects in the OS area. 
4.2.5.1.1. 'Handling of mixed text/image/voice 
documents based on a stadardised office 
document architecture' (Ref. 121: A/83). 
Basis for this work is a sophisticated object oriented 
document architecture being standardised up to the 
first basic level by ECMA, ISO and CCITT. By the project, concepts and architectures will be elaborated 
and verified that support the easy and natural process­
ing of documents. The project will define and test 
bridges between the essentially paper-oriented office 
world and the electronic document world of tomorrow. 
(see also area 4.2.5.3). 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.5.2. Office interface languages. 
Definition and implementation of languages for 
easy user interaction, implemented for the natural 
language environments in the EC and other major 
linguistic regions. 
B-Type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against ongoing work. 
4.2.5.3. Multi-media document manipulation. 
The development and demonstration of techniques 
for the manipulation and editing of multi-media 
documents. This could comprise special hardware 
and/or software to perform high level information 
manipulation functions, together with a language or 
procedure to define the specific required manipula­
tions. 
B-Type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against ongoing work. 
New B-type proposals are invited. 
4.2.5.4. Intelligent user function support. 
The objective is to define and implement a set of 
tools that will allow the application system designer 
to effectively and efficiently implement user support 
functions, a large proportion of which will regard 
non-deterministic processes requiring user interac­
tion. 
B-type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against on-going projects. 
4.2.5.5. User to user multimedia communications 
The objective is to improve the effectiveness of 
communications between persons in pair and 
No C 11/78 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
groups, by taking advantage of simultaneous use of 
voice, handwriting, dataprocessing, document dis­
play and slowscan video. Provisions should be 
made for direct communication between worksta­
tions, irrespective of their relative place in the local 
and/or public network. Develop a prototype and 
evaluate its effectiveness in various communication 
contexts. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
R&D Area 4.3: Communication systems 
DESCRIPTION 
Office communication presents a number of possi­
ble long lead time research topics. Technological 
advances are needed in microelectronics and in 
fibre optics, and research is necessary on the princi­
ples of future communication systems such as wide­
band local area networks (LAN), the interconnec­
tion of LAN's and the gateway facilities for multi-
mode functionality. R&D should lead to new 
systems and to standards consistent with the ISO 
reference model for open systems interconnection 
(OSI). Besides these technical problems, there are 
non-technical problem areas which have to be 
addressed in order to support the progress of office 
communication systems. The requirements of office 
communication have to be explored more systemati­
cally to get a more solid basis for future telecom­
munication system design. The special aspects of 
human interface with communication have to be 
studied, and the future relationship of the PTTs to 
new local communication systems has to be consid­
ered. New languages and operating system facilities 
are necessary in connection with distributed 
systems. 
Within this scope of possible research activities, four 
main topics which cover some key issues have been 
determined. 
The first topic is dedicated to the fundamental ques­
tion — how to provide a common communication 
system for all office communication needs. This 
question becomes more and more urgent, since 
non-voice communication will be needed at almost 
every desk in the future and video communication is 
on its way. 
The second topic addresses the wide band LAN, 
including the application of optical fibres, and all 
the technological problems related to this. It is also 
concerned with the role of switched communication 
in the office. It addresses the problems of advancing from current single service switching techniques 
towards multiservice variable bandwidth switching 
which will allow the interconnection of all office 
peripherals and resources. 
The third topic deals with resource management in a 
distributed environment. 
The fourth topic intends to advance the standardiza­
tion of value added communication services in the 
office e.g. in the form of mail box messaging for 
text, image and voice, and for multi-media informa­
tion systems such as advanced videotex. 
R&D TOPICS 
4.3.1. Architecture 
— communication system architectures 
(type A) 
— security in communications 
— harmonisation issues in communication 
4.3.2. Technology 
— optical wideband LAN (type A) 
— advanced switching techniques (type A) 
4.3.3. Resource management 
— distributed systems (type A) 
4.3.4. Services 
— multi-mode messaging 
— ISDN-based advanced videotex 
— advanced services 
TOPIC DESCRIPTIONS 
4.3.1. Architecture 
The current office environment comprises a quantity 
of disparate proprietary equipment which is gener­
ally only able to communicate to other like equip­
ment. Further different systems have very different 
data speeds and performance requirements which 
can be met by different architectures. 
1^1 D^ (Official journal of the European Communities ^oCUB^ 
An office system architecture is urgently needed 
which supports all devices according to their needs, 
a^hereislikely tobeintegradonof ^AB^circuits^ 
LA^sand wideband linksto support the various 
classes of equipment, signal andprotocol concent 
tratorsorgateways consistent with the^t reference 
model will be required between these classes^ and to 
other remote systems over public carrier circuits. 
^ith the proliferation of information equipment the 
demand for good interworking in the office is most 
urgent.^Phereisaunique opportunity for European 
manufacturers to agree on common protocols for 
interworlcing allowing the specifications of VLSt 
communicationchipsineconomicalquantitiesand 
thus in turn reducing equipment costs. 
In order to produceadurable solution that not only 
enables interworking of current disparate equip 
mentsbutalsoencouragesandeasestheadoption 
of developed techniques in future predictable equip 
mentsmbe range of work is expected to be extensive. 
^11 C^^^^^c^o^ ^te^ ^rc^te^ture^ 
^typeAp 
POetermine the topologies most appropriate for typP 
cal office situations including locaP distributed and 
longhaul linked offices^ given by traffic require 
mentsanddistance. Oefinegateways^communica 
tion servers^ network access protocols and multi 
piecing schemes^e^ploringthepossibilitiesof net 
work error recovery^ reconfiguration and overall 
control.^Phe architecture should providefor gateway 
functions to take account of future developments in 
the public network and also for privacy and security 
requirements. 
^Phe industrial interest for the development ofstan 
dards and the execution of conformance tests is part 
ofthe project definition. 
Vearl^ 
— study alternatives of architecture with particular 
respectto distributed workings technologies to 
be e^pectedm^ffic characteristics^ requirements 
for monitoring and logging network manage 
ment and control and for security of access and 
data transfer. — define gateways^ access protocols and multiple 
ing schemes. 
^ l^th months network architecture requirements 
analysis. 
Vear^to^ 
— design basic architectures ^e.g. PA^based^ 
^B^based^ on the knowledge acquired above 
^ l^th months specification of network architecture 
for implementation. 
— first statements on economics^ performances 
standards 
— study alternatives for cabling architecture and 
multiplexing schemesm^ing into account e^ist 
ing plant environments buildings^ existing 
cablese fioorspace^ maintenances vulnerability^ 
security^etc. 
— definition of communication server and other 
gateway functions^ including functions which 
convert the different types of protocols into a 
common PA^protocolforintraoffice network 
ing^ interoffice open system interconnections 
database access and remote information 
centres 
— refinement of architecture ^e.g. routings stan 
dardi^ation activities preparation ofe^perimen 
tal implementationasfarasappearsnecessary 
^e.g. pilot communication servers 
— standardisation activities^ realisation ofe^peri 
mental implementation 
— evaluate architecture by results ofe^perimental 
work. 
Vear^^ 
V^ork on tools to be started inVear^^ 
— identification of tools required. Identification of 
relevant standard communication interchange 
and management protocols (^session^ transport 
andnetworkp Identificationofrelevantequip 
ment architectures. Poefinitionoftool architect 
ture. 
— specification of individual tools. fOesign and 
construct tools. 
^ ^nd months tools and methodology specifica 
tion. 
^ ^th months pilot network implementationt^sP 
^ o^th months evaluation report pilot network^s^ 
report on tool specification metho 
dology. 
NoC 11/80 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
4.3.1.1.1. 'Broad site local wideband communica­
tion system'(Ref. 73: A/83). 
This project is concerned with the research and 
development of a local area wideband communication 
system for broad sites. The prototype system devel­
oped will meet the anticipated future communication 
requirements of large industrial, scientific and admin­
istrative organisations. The project will take into 
account data, text, voice and graphics communication 
needs, and it will provide backbone networks and 
gateways for heterogeneous LAN's. 
4.3.1.1.2. 'Communications systems architectures' 
(Ref 237: A/84) 
The emphasis of the project is on the development of 
new architectures for the interconnection of terminals 
and resources in an integrated multi-service environ­
ment. The network developed in this project will reflect 
the open systems policy by providing interfaces follow­
ing OSI standards. A top down approach is proposed 
in three phases: 
Phase one will identify the needs for communication 
by analysis of user requirements. A logical model of 
communication will be developed. A proposal will be 
made for the integration of a distributed operating 
system within the open system structure. 
Phase two will develop the physical architecture by 
mapping the logical model from phase one onto actual 
communication technology. 
Phase three will be the development of those system 
elements identified in phase two to achieve a pilot net­
work demonstration. The pilot network will be bench-
marked for performance to evaluate system design 
decisions in phase two. 
4.3.1.1.3. 'An integrated network architecture for 
office communications' (Ref. 395 + 95: 
A/83-84). 
The project is to design and define an architecture for 
office communications, and to demonstrate a pilot 
implementation. The architecture will be capable of 
including all types of local and wide area networks, 
such as optical LAN's, CATV broadband networks, 
PABX's, packet-switched networks and the emerging 
integrated services digital network (ISDN). 
The integrated architecture will be demonstrated in a 
pilot integrated network including the broadband net­
work and a variety of other available local and wide area networks, and linking the project partners' sites. 
The demonstrated applications will include an enh­
anced version of the document handling environment. 
No proposals are invited, unless they contribute to 
the on-going projects. 
4.3.1.2. Security in communications 
Definition and demonstration of security improve­
ments in networks. Implement on available net­
works. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.3.1.3. Harmonisation issues in communication 
As communication means linking transmitters and 
receivers, a large number of compatibility issues is 
to be dealt with. This topic provides a means for 
reaching pre-standard agreements on such issues, in 
the context of existing agreements such as the ISO/ 
OSI reference model and of on-going international 
standardisation efforts, and testing of the resulting 
specifications. 
'Standardisation of integrated LAN services and ser­
vice access protocols' (Ref. 43: B/83) 
The aim of the project is to define the services to be 
provided by an integrated traffic LAN and to define a 
stable, LAN-technology independent interface 
between DTE and LAN access unit. This interface will 
comprise the physical interface and the service access 
protocols by means of which the services can be used. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.3.2. Technology 
Any form of integrated office will require an under­
lying communication infrastructure of sufficient 
capacity and reliability to carry all the traffic on an 
instantaneous (or fractional delay only) basis. Cur­
rent estimates suggest that capacities well in excess 
of 100 Mb/s will be required to handle inter-com­
puter, inter-workstation and inter-CAD equipments. 
They will be expected to support concurrently 
speech, data and static and moving image. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11 /81 
Both co-axial and fibre technologies offer the 
required capacity, but fibre optics transmission pro­
perties are better suited to the Gb/s range. Fibre 
optic technology is currently employed mainly for 
point to point working. Improved techniques are 
needed for the passive coupling of equipments into 
a fibre link and also for the switching (or routing) of 
signals in a network architecture, preferably by opti­
cal switching techniques. With this achieved, there 
should then be sufficient capacity headroom (more 
than 1 Gb/s) for foreseeable future applications, 
limited only then by current fibre optic termination 
technology. 
4.3.2.1. Optical Wideband LAN 
Identify and formulate architectures and standards 
for optical wideband local area networks, define the 
design requirements of VLSI chips and demonstrate 
the functional and economic feasibility. 
Programme ( — ) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Years 1 to 5: 
— architectures and protocols for optical wide­
band LANs defined. 
* 3rd month: specification of architectures and 
protocols for optical wideband 
LAN's. 
— examine and design transmission and interface 
equipment for fibre optic techniques 
* 12th month: specifications for optical LAN trans­
mission techniques. 
— define the design requirements of VLSI chips to 
implement the protocols for network interfac­
ing; guaranteeing good levels of reliability and 
security. 
* 18th month: specification for VLSI chips for net­
work interfaces. 
— evaluate demonstrator designs, carry out neces­
sary developments for demonstrator 
* 36th month: specification for demonstrator. 
* 48th month: implement demonstrator to show 
functional and economic feasibility 
in an operational in-house environ­
ment. 
* 60th month: evaluation report of demonstrator. 4.3.2.1.1. 'Local integrated optical network (LION)' 
(Ref. 169: A/83) 
The LION project aims at implementing a wideband 
local area network based on optical fibre technology, 
with major application in the office environment, 
including such applications in industrial research 
laboratories, universities, hospitals and manufactur­
ing plants. The LION will guarantee multiple access 
to a number of independent users with the require­
ments of distributed processing and distributed intel­
ligence, and handle voice, data, text and video traffic. 
Very high bit rates are foreseen, requiring new tech­
nologies in integrated optics and very high speed elec­
tronic components. 
4.3.2.1.2. 'Ultra Wideband Coherent Optical LAN' 
(Ref 249: B/84) 
The project aims to investigate the feasibility of utilis­
ing coherent optical techniques in a local area network 
by addressing both technical and system issues. It will 
consider new machine architectures to implement high 
bandwidth transmissions of order of several Gbits/sec 
for different types of information including voice, text, 
image, etc. 
No proposals are invited, unless they extend the 
on-going projects. 
4.3.2.2. Advanced switching techniques (Type A) 
Identify the requirements influencing switched 
architecture design. Propose and design a switched 
communication physical architecture to intercon­
nect single service and multiple integrated service 
users in an office, with office system resources and 
wider networks. 
Design and implement a demonstration to evaluate 
feasibility and performance. 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— Identify and evaluate fundamental parameters 
influencing switched architectures. 
Years 2 to 4: 
— Define physical and logical architecture for 
switched interconnection. 
No C 11/82 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
— Design system elements (switch, and interface 
elements) for the physical architecture defined 
above. 
— Preliminary statement on feasibility of a com­
mon switching technology. 
— Define VLSI requirements (performance, device 
density). 
— Specify demonstration and design in detail ele­
ments for it. 
— Implement demonstration (it is desirable that 
this should be as an element of a wider architec­
ture). 
Year 5: 
— Evaluate demonstration (it is desirable that this 
should be as an element of a wider architecture). 
— Revise physical architecture definition. 
— Revise VLSI requirements. 
A-type proposals are invited. 
4.3.3. Resource Management 
In integrated office and factory networks, there will 
be an increasing need and opportunity to share 
remote resources and also to seek and use spare pro­
cessing capacity. 
Considerable research has been done or is underway 
in the general area of distributed systems and distri­
buted databases. The general nature of this work 
implies that highly skilled staff must be involved in 
the setting up and management of these systems, 
particularly in dynamic environments (especially 
where direct demands on the system are changing). 
The fundamental requirement is to provide mechan­
isms for the construction and management of such 
systems by relatively unskilled staff. 
This requires significant programmes of work to be 
undertaken concerned with parallel processing 
within a network of several discrete machines, distri­
buted data base management and techniques for the 
interconnection of applications processes. 
4.3.3.1. Distributed systems (type A). 
Identification of the application level primitives for 
the transfer of data and/or program modules for remote processing or data access, including auth­
ority for access. The concept of singularity or inte­
gration of data and programs and automatic updat­
ing of these items in a distributed environment 
should be addressed and practical solutions found. 
Devise a support language to allow users, applica­
tions and operating systems to programme the 
movement and access of software resources. Spe­
cific commands may include down-stream loading, 
remote run requests, remote procedure calls, data 
base updates. 
Devise an infrastructure mechanism to manage the 
resources of a network including knowledge of 
resource availability, resource integrity, fault recog­
nition and automatic recovery. 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— Identification of sub-classes of application and 
resource interaction. Definition and proving of 
primitives to control resource access by applica­
tions. Exploration of techniques for updating 
distributed programs and database, whilst 
retaining consistency. Outline requirements spe­
cification for a distributed computerised sup­
port language. Outline requirements specifica­
tion for an infrastructure management system. 
* 12th month: Distributed computing primitives. 
Specifications for a distributed com­
puting support language and envi­
ronment management system. 
Year 2-3: 
— First language implementation on a simple 
infrastructure (as a test bed) to fully test the 
techniques of distributed resource access and 
control in a network of intelligent workstations. 
Validation of primitives and management tech­
niques. Effective database management tech­
nique to balance concurency and consistency in 
a distributed environment, including recovery 
techniques. 
* 24th month: Data base management demonstra­
tion. 
* 36th month: Support language implementation 
on a test bed of distributed worksta­
tions. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/83 
Year 4-5: 
— Full language implementation and full infras­
tructure management implementation for the 
autonomous distribution and co-operation of 
processing requests. Validation of concurrency 
and consistency parameters. Validation of fail­
ure identification and automatic recovery. Con­
sideration of effectiveness in a non-stop envi­
ronment. 
* 48th month: Pilot resource management environ­
ment. 
* 60th month: Fully validated demonstration of a 
distributed workstation environ­
ment. 
A-type proposals are invited. 
4.3.4. Services 
Study and specification of the functional expansion 
of videotex services on the basis of future ISDNs 
(narrowband and broadband digital networks); pre­
sentation of text/graphics/images/speech/moving 
video and the extended two-way user interface. Set 
up of experiments and their evaluation. 
4.3.4.1. Multi-mode messaging. 
Formulate the requirements for office messaging 
services (text, image, voice, video frames, moving 
video). Evaluate feasibility of messaging of mixed-
mode messages. Stadardisation issues are to be 
addressed. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.3.4.2. ISDN-based advanced videotex. 
Study the improvement of videotex services on the 
basis of extended applications and future networks. 
Multi-mode presentation of text, graphics, images, 
moving video. Interactive human-friendly functions 
are required, as well as standardisation of interfaces 
and protocols. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.3.4.2.1. 'A high compression picture coding algo­
rithm for photographic videotex' (Ref. 563: 
B/84) 
The purpose is to develop with a group that is repre­
sentative but small enough to be effective, a high com­pression picture coding methodology that can be 
applied to television signals. The final goal of the 
work is the definition of a selected coding technique as 
a possible European standard for photographic video­
tex on ISDN. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.3.4.3. Advanced services. 
This topic provides a possibility that proposals for 
innovative work are made, unconstrained by spe­
cific references in this workplan. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
R&D Area 4.4: Advanced multi-media storage and 
retrieval systems 
DESCRIPTION 
Information technology and office automation are 
fundamentally concerned with the storage, access­
ing and movement of information, covering data, 
text, graphics, voice, images and other forms. Inves­
tigations leading to the definition of an advanced 
data-base model for office applications and studies 
of the security, privacy, authority of access and 
information distribution are fundamental to a wide 
range of office systems research. 
The proposed research is oriented toward construc­
tion of a number of experimental prototype office 
information servers, and the operation of these in 
realistic conditions, alone and in association with 
each other, to gain practical experience in the sys­
tems implications of building these servers, loading 
them with practical information and using them in a 
realistic way. 
The work is therefore divided into three general 
classes: systems issues, usage and needs, and com­
ponents. 
Systems issues: these cover the design and operation 
of office information servers, including high-per­
formance filters and investigations of new informa­
tion models and the development of metrics relating 
to these. Servers must be considered in relation to 
the other components of a comprehensive office sys­
tem including other information servers and the dis­
tribution of information and functions between 
them. Work on the filing interface-related aspects of 
NoC 11/84 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
query languages and declarative content languages 
is identified. 
Usage and needs: this topic addresses the nature of 
the information (data, text, graphics, images etc. ...) 
that will be held in office information servers in 
terms of quality, quantity and combination and the 
usage of that information. An internal adaptive 
interface is to be investigated, that responds to the 
needs and experience of users. 
Components: the development of hardware, soft­
ware and systems elements that will be incorporated 
into advanced filing systems, primarily in informa­
tion servers, but also in advanced workstations. 
These include filters, the systems management 
issues relating to using optical discs in advanced 
office systems, the systems techniques required to 
achieve very high perceived reliability, and the 
application of advanced information processing 
techniques to advanced filing and retrieval systems. TOPIC DESCRIPTIONS 
4.4.1. File server architectures 
4.4.1.1. Office information server design and evalua­
tion (type A). 
This area will define and document the system func­
tions and attributes of a range of office information 
servers and the logical interfaces of a range of sub­
systems with other components of a total office sys­
tem. These will be translated into designs and 
implementation plans and several representative 
models will be constructed as laboratory prototypes. 
These will be used, alone and in combination, to 
evaluate the practical operation of these servers. The 
issues involved in distributing information between 
multiple servers and handling the interactions 
between these servers is an essential part of this 
work. 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
R&DTOPICS 
The topics covered by this R&D area include: 
4.4.1. File server architectures Year 1 
describe a range of multi-mode servers and their 
functional attributes 
establish the systems design and components 
requirements. 
— office information server design and 
evaluation (type A) 
— very high security systems 
4.4.2. System issues 
— new information models 
— file query and declarative content lan­
guages Year 2: 
— detail implementation plan and design 
— simulate performance 
— establish component availability 
— define system distribution issues and approach. 
* 18th month: Specification of information 
server(s). 
* 24th month: Performance estimation. 
4.4.3. Usage and needs 
— nature and usage of filed information 
— user-file adaptive interface 
— performance considerations Year 3: 
— definition of a work programme to validate sys­
tem concepts; 
— desk assessment of designs based on available 
devices 
— detailed implementation plan for distributed 
implementation. 
4.4.4. Components 
file filters 
optical storage systems concepts Year 4: 
— implement designs, including optical disc and 
first phase file filters 
— commence construction of distributed facilities. 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the 
* 48th month: Prototype(s) of information ser­
vers). 
Year 5: 
— operate, evaluate and improve implementations, 
including distributed information and func­
tions. 
* 60th month: Evaluation of server(s). 
4.4.1.1.1. 'A multimedia filing system' (Ref.28 + 
436: A/83) 
The goal of this project is to develop a system that pro­
vides filing services for multimedia documents using 
magnetic and optical storage media. Particular atten­
tion will be paid to the needs of the office environ­
ment. The system will be implemented on a dedicated 
server that accepts requests from clients such as work­
stations or other devices. The units of communication 
between server and client will be multimedia docu­
ments rather than physical records or blocks. 
The services provided by the server are those tradition­
ally found in an information retrieval or database 
environment. However, the dual demands of a multi­
media capability and application to offices introduce 
research issues. The server will be implemented by 
increments. The first prototype will deal with text and 
attribute data only, subsequent versions will add 
image and voice data. 
4.4.1.1.2. 'Design and Operational Evaluation of 
Office Information Servers' (Ref.231: 
A/84) 
The objective of the project is to design, demonstrate 
and then evaluate a family of working prototype office 
information servers capable of holding in digital elec­
tronic form representations of all office information 
currently committed to paper. A global model will be 
established both for the information held in the servers 
and the functions needed to manipulate and manage 
it. Key to the project is the consideration of the issues 
involved in distributed information, architecture and 
use in the office environment. Two major demonstra­
tions of the capabilities of Office Information Servers 
are planned during the project. A pilot demonstration 
at the end of year 3 and a main demonstration at the 
end of year 4. A full year is then available for a full 
evaluation of the system prior to final reports. 
No proposals are invited, unless they extend the 
on-going projects. European Communities No C 11/85 
4.4.1.2. Very high security systems. 
Since information contained within servers will fre­
quently represent critical assets to users, the protec­
tion of information from corruption due to system 
failures and intrusion by unauthorised and unquali­
fied users will be critical. Technical and system 
approaches to the problems need to be developed, 
(possibly using expert systems techniques) leading 
eventually to highly fail-safe and fail-free filing sys­
tems, that are protected against unauthorised use. 
B-type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against on-going work. 
4.4.2. System issues 
4.4.2.1. New information models. 
New information models of an office environment 
particularly one in which the users are shielded from 
awareness of the operation and design of the infor­
mation systems, applying AI methods and experi­
ence. 
4.4.2.1.1. 'New information models for Office Filing 
and Retrieval' (Ref 59: A/83) 
The project deals with research into new information 
models for office filing and retrieval. The emphasis 
will be on research of the theoretical issues of a model 
which characterises all forms of office information. A 
number of models will be developed and related to 
techniques of filing and retrieval of information. 
Many key problems are being investigated, the major­
ity of these dealing with aspects of human acceptabil­
ity, or more precisely: speed and accurateness of the 
retrieval process for the skilled and unskilled user. 
The models developed will be constructed and vali­
dated in a software environment which emulates the 
interaction of an office filing and retrieval system. 
B-type proposals will be checked against on-going 
work. 
4.4.2.2. File query and declarative content languages 
The filing related aspects of these languages should 
be investigated. Particular attention must be given 
to the extension of these languages that may be 
NoC 11/86 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
required by the developing complexity of the filing 
systems and user needs, and the application of new 
processing techniques as components of the file 
servers. 
B-type proposals invited. 
4.4.3. Usage and needs 
4.4.3.1. Nature and usage of filed information. 
Theoretical studies and interviews with advanced 
office systems users to establish a range of scenarios 
covering the nature and the quantity of the objects 
that will be contained in practical office information 
servers, and the usage that will be made of them. 
The project No 285 addresses some problems in this 
area. 
B-type proposals are invited, but will be checked 
against on-going work. 
4.4.3.2. User-file adaptive interfaces. 
Study of interactions between workstations and 
information servers in realistic user environments. 
Development of an adaptive interface between 
these subsystems that presents a common and 
potentially standard user interface to the filing sys­
tem. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.4.3.3. Performance of office information servers. 
Develop a set of methods for evaluating, predicting 
and testing the performance of office filing architec­
tures and algorithms. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.4.4. Components 
4.4.4.1. File filters. 
Identify needs and develop extensions to existing 
file filter technology to satisfy predicted office infor­
mation storage and retrieval requirements. Study the 
implications of searching large multimedia files and propose new hardware or firmware filters to 
improve searching efficiency. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.4.4.2. Optical storage system concepts. 
This project concerns the development of systems 
application and management techniques, and the 
creation of relevant software aids, taking advantage 
of optical storage devices ensuring that they are 
available for practical use at an early date. 
B-type proposals will be checked against on-going 
work. 
R&D area 4.5.: Integrated office information 
systems 
DESCRIPTION 
The research and the prototype development of 
components for office systems has to be supple­
mented by the research and evaluation of integrated 
office systems concepts for a variety of office envi­
ronments. In an industrial R&D programme the 
testing of prototypes, against requirements that are 
representative for market conditions, is the most 
important check on the relevance of the research 
done. 
Two topics are identified in this area that are com­
plementary but not necessarily mutually dependent. 
First: the design, development and evaluation of 
advanced office system prototypes, based upon 
state-of-the-art components developed in Europe, 
possibly under the ESPRIT programme (area 4.2 to 
4.4), and based upon the results of structured ana­
lysis in the office systems science and human factors 
areas (area 4.1). 
Second: the creation of test- and evaluation envi­
ronments for office system components and inte­
grated office system prototypes, that allow qualita­
tive and quantitative validation in a variety of simu­
lated offices and enterprises. This work would also 
use the products of area 4.1 as well as other stan­
dards, performance and integration work. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/87 
R&D AREA SUMMARY 
The topics to be studied in this area include: 
4.5.1. Information system architecture. 
— system architectures (type A) 
— systems security. 
4.5.2. Test and evaluation. 
— office system test and evaluation facili­
ties (type A) 
— office systems application test beds. 
TOPIC DESCRIPTIONS 
4.5.1. Information systems architecture 
4.5.1.1. System architecture (type A). 
The definition of a system architecture specifying 
interworking between the different system compo­
nents from the physical level up to the application 
level in order to guide the integration. The actual 
design and implementation of an experimental inte­
grated system is to be based upon the defined sys­
tem architecture, upon state-of-the-art subsystems, 
preferably developed under the ESPRIT pro­
gramme, and upon results of structured analysis in 
the office system science and human factor areas. 
Their subsequent integration and evaluation should 
be done in an environment that represents realisti­
cally office and business conditions, including the 
short and long haul communication requirements of 
todays businesses. 
The work is to be limited to the demonstration of 
generic functions, i.e. those functions that are not 
specific to a particular type of business or organisa­
tion. 
The number of iteration cycles shall be limited, and 
not be extended byond the stage of experimental 
prototype. 
Some aspects to be covered in this area are, amongst 
others: 
— integration of components from different ori-
gines 
— system reconfiguration 
— overall system security 
— transparency of the system for the user — identification and application of instructional 
primitives 
— management infra-structure. 
Program ( — ) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— Definition of laboratory model & test specifica­
tions 
* 12th month: system specification. 
Year 2 + 3: 
— Implement Laboratory test configuration 
— build laboratory models 
— define and implement test tools and test equip­
ment. 
Year 3: 
— Laboratory test and evaluation. 
Years 4 + 5: 
Modify and retest 
* 60th month: fully tested experimental prototype. 
A-type proposals are invited. 
4.5.1.2. System security 
The analysis and design of secure systems. Imple­
ment and test on available systems. The system 
should include user access control procedures that 
guarantee confidentiality of data if required. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
4.5.2. Test and Evaluation 
4.5.2.1. Office system test and evaluation facilities 
(type A). 
The creation of test- and evaluation environments 
(or centres) for Office System Components and 
Integrated Office System Experimental Prototypes, 
that allow qualitative and quantitative validation for 
a variety of offices and enterprises. 
The availability of such facilities is of infra-struc­
tural significance, as qualified services can be prov­
ided to a large number of small to large organisa­
tions, that will not be in a position to create these 
NoC 11/88 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
facilities on their own, because of the substantial 
budgetary and intellectual resources required on a 
continuing bases. 
Program (—) and intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— specification phase: detailing the "nature and 
extent of services to be provided, and setting up 
a scheme for their gradual development in the 
subsequent years; 
— defining criteria and conditions for the use of 
the services; 
— defining management structure. 
* 12th month: scenario for setting up and exploit­
ing the facility. 
Year 2: 
— implementation of an experimental test facility, 
followed by tests of system components to 
demonstrate the initial feasibility of the 
approach. 
Year 3: 
— performance of realistic tests, to demonstrate 
the overall feasibility of the test facility. 
* 45th month: report demonstrating the feasibility 
of the proposed facility. 
This area relates to the total range of manufacturing 
activities including computer aided design (CAD), 
computer aided engineering (CAE), computer aided 
manufacturing (CAM), flexible machining and 
assembly systems, robotics, testing and quality con­
trol. 
The reason for selecting this particular subject area 
is the following: its potential impact on the methods 
and economies of production, which are vital to 
Europe, calls for a strong indeginous involvement in 
CIM systems development. Year 4-5: 
— gradual expansion of the test facility; 
— execution of tests and evaluations. 
* 60th month: Report demonstrating that the facil­
ity could be run without a need for 
Community support. 
A-type proposals are invited. 
4.5.2.2. Office systems application test beds 
The analysis of application areas and the design of 
adequate performance evaluation criteria, in order 
to prepare the ground for Office Systems field tests 
that may reveal weaknesses and strengths of such 
systems under development. 
To derive general conclusions that may lead to 
improved technologies and systems, particularly 
with respect to their human friendliness. 
Projcts have to be of limited size, need not necessar­
ily lead to an application system development, and 
should emphasize the pre-competitive nature of the 
work. 
B-type proposals are invited. 
The objectives in CIM are to create an environment 
in which multi-vendor systems can be implemented 
in a progressive manner, and in which Community 
IT suppliers can compete effectively. To achieve 
this, effort will be concentrated in two main streams. 
Firstly, work is needed on infrastructures, which 
concentrates on the development of design rules 
and architectures leading to a common reference 
frame. Relevant international standards activity 
must be continuously assessed, and areas identified 
in which European action could be supported. The 
second stream involves action on those sub-systems, 
interfaces and tools whose development or refine­
ment is judged to be of strategic value for European 
Community industry (both users and vendors). SUBPROGRAMME 5 
COMPUTER INTEGRATED MANUFACTURE 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/89 
In order to stimulate and facilitate the transfer of 
new information technology concepts to the engi­
neering industries within the Community, and prop­
erly to support, utilize and demonstrate the pro­
posed research activities, it is strongly recommended 
that as part of the ESPRIT programme as demon­
strators three or more advanced CIM systems 
should be established within designated centres of 
excellence. Such systems would provide an impor­
tant focus for the coordination of effort and the 
exchange of information among the various and 
sometimes disparate parts of the CIM R&D pro­
gramme. 
R&D area 5.1.: Integrated system architecture 
Introduction 
The resources needed to define standard architec­
tures, and the market strength necessary to gain 
acceptance of such architectures are beyond the 
reach of all but the largest and most influential 
organisations. However the desirability of develop­
ing a reference model, which would allow users to 
develop multivendor CIM systems, and which 
would avoid exclusive market domination by Amer­
ican and Japanese de facto standards and frame­
works is readily apparent. This is an area where the 
potential for significant advances through a unified 
approach are high, and it is therefore particularly 
suitable for effort on a Community scale. 
Description 
In the next decade, one can expect that a wide 
variety of CIM systems will be implemented within 
manufacturing industry. To be effective, each sys­
tem must serve its specific application in an opti­
mum manner. In order to remain competitive and to 
preserve flexibility, effective design methods for 
CIM must be developed so that new technologies 
can be exploited as they become available. At pres­
ent, there are some guidelines but no international 
standards available for the design of system archi­
tectures for CIM. 
New and innovative conceptual approaches are 
required in order to fit appropriate system architec­
tures to the total manufacturing process from initial 
product development, product design, production 
planning and control, real time control of produc­
tion equipment, materials handling, through to inventory control and sales. To support the total sys­
tems approach, it is necessary to develop strategies 
for data, communications, and processing, which 
address both physical and logical requirements. 
To encourage the wider use of CIM systems by 
reducing the risk of failure, methods should be 
developed to allow the representation, specification 
and testing of proposed systems prior to installation. 
The overall approach covers: 
— impact of CIM system on strategy and organisa­
tion of the company 
— architectures 
— elements supporting the architectures 
5.1.1 and 5.1.2, System Architectures forCIM(') 
Description 
Preliminary work has already been carried out in 
several pilot projects on 'Design Rules for CIM', 
and is nearing completion. Experience has shown 
that a major difficulty in this area is that of combin­
ing technical progress with a wide degree of concen­
sus for the eventual results. In order to try and 
ensure a broad base of acceptability, a special 
interest group (SIG 5.1) has been convened and is 
already in operation. The purpose of this group is to 
provide comments, feedback, and guidance to teams 
undertaking project work. At the time of writing, 
SIG 5.1 has produced a list of aims for work in 5.1. 
These are: 
— to provide guidance and support for users and 
potential users of CIM systems 
— to provide the Community IT industry with sup­
port in the form of advice and information, and 
where necessary, tools to exploit effectively the 
expanding market for CIM systems 
— to monitor relevant developments in interna­
tional standards, and to make recommendations 
for united action where necessary 
— to maintain relations with other sub-areas of 
CIM, with other areas of ESPRIT, and with rel­
evant national programmes. 
(') The project is classified as 'B' because at the time of 
writing, it is largely unspecified. However, the total 
resource fpr area 5.1 is more in line with a type 'A' 
project. 
NoC 11/90 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
— to promote a common awareness and improved 
understanding of the concepts of CIM, for 
example, by establishing a common terminol­
ogy 
It should be clearly understood that this is a list of 
aims, and is not a specification of project work. The 
means of achievement are still under discussion, 
and it is likely that a project definition phase will 
begin in the last quarter of 1984. 
Thus the area will be subject to a two-phase 
approach: 
5.1.1: project definition 
5.1.2: development and implementation 
It is clearly of paramount importance that work in 
other sub-areas of CIM and the outputs from rel­
evant pilot projects be taken into account by 5.1. 
Programme (5.1.1) 
Year 0: — produce first draft of design rules for 
specific areas of manufacturing 
Year 1: — 6th month: 
Present design rules, and produce final 
recommendations. 
— 6th- 8th month: 
Maintaining close links with the special 
interest group, SIG 5.1, present project 
definition for future work. 
Programme (5.1.2) 
Years 1-5: — Development and implementation of 
projects defined in 5.1.1 above. 
5.1.1.1. 'Design Rules for CIM Systems' (Ref. 34: 
A/83) 
The objective of the project is to make detailed recom­
mendations for a set of European design rules for 
Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems. 
5.1.1.2. 'Computer Integrated Production Insula, 
Design Rules and Standards' (Ref. 92: 
A/83) 
This project concentrates on the data and dataflows 
within a Computer Integrated Production Insula, 
CI PI. It will produce design rules relating to CI Pis. A 
CI PI in this context can be envisaged to include some or all of a design system, NC systems, production 
units, automation units (robots and handling equip­
ment), test systems and systems for production plan­
ning and control. 
5.1.3. Graphics subsystems (Type B) 
Graphics are an integral part of CAD/CAE, but 
other areas of CIM can make extensive use of 
graphics, at management and shop-floor levels. 
Examples of application areas include simulation 
(e.g. work flow, what-if costing), performance infor­
mation (on suppliers, production levels, costs) and 
management information (work schedules, resource 
allocations). This project area is to identify the dif­
fering requirements for graphics within the many 
areas of CIM but excluding CAD/CAE, and to 
develop software prototype subsystems where 
appropriate (for subsequent transfer to VLSI, see 
section 5.5.2.). 
5.1.3.1. 'Design and specification of configurable 
graphics subsystem for CIM' (Ref. 496: 
B/84) 
The project has two primary goals: 
1. The identification and classification of the differ­
ing requirements for graphics in the many areas 
of CIM. 
2. The development of software/hardware prototype 
graphics subsystems that meet the requirements of 
1. above. 
To attain its first goal, the partners will carry out an 
exploratory survey covering hardware, software, and 
man-machine interface requirements for graphics of 
CIM systems currently in use. To attain the second 
goal, the partners envisage the use of well-defined 
standards upon which to build. For example, the 
Graphics Kernel System (GKS) and the programming 
language Ada are two obvious candidates. 
R&D area 5.2: CAD/CAE 
Description 
The importance of computer aided design is that it: 
— reduces the design time and facilitates optimiza­
tion of the design, 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/91 
— facilitates storage of all relevant aspects of the 
design, and rapid update and retrieval of infor­
mation, 
— generates data which is used by the whole man­
ufacturing process including robot and machine 
tool programmes. 
Current CAD systems include facilities for design­
ing and drafting parts, calculating physical parame­
ters and simulating kinematic and dynamic behav­
iour. Future developments should aim at CAD/ 
CAE systems which take full advantage of using 
computers as a means for representing products in 
the design process. Such systems should include 
facilities for designing products with optimal per­
formance and economy, supporting all design 
phases starting from the conceptual phase, which is 
recognized in being critical in the design. Ultimately 
these CAD/CAE systems have to support multi-dis­
ciplinary, geographically dispersed consortia of 
organisations co-operating in the design process. 
Modular structures for CAD/CAE subsystems 
(which include generalized 3D-modellers, geometri­
cal design systems, engineering computational pro­
grams, simulation programs) must be developed in 
order to allow the designer access to different soft­
ware packages and data bases. Such systems supply 
data that is readily usable for all interacting engi­
neering and production activities, as well as good 
display quality and capabilities. 
This requires integrated CAD/CAE systems which 
can generate the information needed to select, 
define, verify, simulate and optimize the production 
process in terms of generalized manufacturing 
operations. 
The role of AI techniques in product and produc­
tion system design must be continuously reviewed. 
Unless very strong reasons can be shown, all pro­
jects in area 5.2 should be consistent with relevant 
architectures developed in area 5.1, the interaction 
of CAD/CAE with CAM (5.3) and FMS (5.4) sys­
tems must also be taken into account. 
R&D TOPICS 
The R&D topics in this area are: 5.2.2. Use of AI techniques in CAD/CAE. 
5.2.1. CAD/CAE facilities for product and process 
design (Type A) 
— formulate possible CAD/CAE systems struc­
tures, consistent with the design rules of 5.1, and 
define a development and integration pro­
gramme; 
— survey available subsystems and general tools. 
Identify those which are usable and where 
necessary specify and develop additional items 
or modifications; 
— develop subsystems and tools and integrate into 
overall system structure(s); 
— based on CAD/CAE general tools, adapt or 
develop further tools and subsystems to support 
integrated CAD/CAE activities, e.g.: 
* product design activities such as project 
management, concept design, preliminary 
design, analysis and simulation, final 
design, product documentation manage­
ment, product configuration management. 
* process design activities such as process 
selection, process modelling, process plan­
ning, process plan simulation, process plan 
optimization, process quality assurance 
planning, 
* tools specific to different classes of prod­
ucts and processes, and to 'group technolo­
gies' concepts (geometry, dimensions, 
materials, tolerances, process operations 
type). 
Programme and intermediate objectives 
A typical project could have a time scale as indi­
cated below. Depending on the nature of specific 
projects, the time scale may vary. The use of proto­
types in all stages to show the adequacy of work 
performed is encouraged. 
12th month: 
— identify requirements for product design metho­
dologies; 
5.2.1. CAD/CAE facilities for product and process 
design. — complete survey of available systems and hard­
ware. 
NoC 11/92 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
24th month: 
— functional and requirements specification of 
tools, 
— formulation of CAD/CAE system structures 
and definition of development and integration 
programme; 
— definition of product and process design metho­
dologies; 
— definition of coding and classification metho­
dologies. 
36th month: 
— start of tool development; 
— development of application software for prod­
uct design system, CAD/CAM tool integration 
and coding and classification system; 
— first output of coding and classification recom­
mendations. 
48th month: 
— finalize development of CAD/CAE general 
tools; 
— finalize development of application software for 
product design system, CAD/CAM tool inte­
gration and coding and classification system. 
— final recommendations on coding and classifi­
cation. 
60th month: 
— finalize integration of general tools with other 
CAD/CAE activities. 
5.2.1.1. 'Reference Architecture for Implementation 
of Integrated Data and Methods Bases for 
CAE Systems' (Ref 536 : A/84) 
A reference architecture will be developed from a func­
tional point of view, which embraces the following lev­
els: 
communication, data transfer, data base and meth­
ods-base. The functionality of the coresponding com­
munication protocols, metafile formats, engineering 
data bases, methods data bases, user interface mana­
gers and method interaction specification languages 
will be specified in detail and tools for their implemen­
tation developed. From here, a general purpose CAE-
(HZS)-System Architecture will be proposed and 
implemented for different application environments. 5.2.1.2. CAD Interfaces (Ref. 322: A/84) 
This project concentrates on important interfaces of 
cad/cam systems: the cad data exchange interface, 
the cad data base interface, the interface to finite ele­
ment analysis and dynamic model optimization, and 
the Al-based advanced high-level modelling interface. 
The design and implementation of these interfaces will 
be closely coordinated with the international standar­
dization in this area. 
5.2.1.3. 'Development of an Integrated Process and 
Operations Planning System with the Use of 
Interactive 3D Modelling Technology' (Ref. 
409: B/84) 
The objective is to develop an interactive graphics-
based system for process and operation planning 
within a manufacturing environment. To reduce 
development costs, the overall system would be built 
from existing and proven system components of the 
project partners. The approach will be to achieve a 
uniform user interface for CAD and CAM-systems 
and secondly to provide a complete simulation of the 
manufacturing process. 
5.2.2. Use of AI techniques in CAD/CAE 
Review developments in artificial intelligence which 
might be applicable to CAD/CAE. Carry out 
development work in appropriate areas. 
5.2.2.1. 'Knowledge and Decision Support for 
Material Handling Systems' (Ref. 293: 
B/84) 
The project aims to investigate the applicability of 
expert systems for decision support and to develop a 
knowledge base for modelling material handling sys­
tems. The objectives are to analyse and define the 
knowledge necessary to achieve valid assessments for 
system designs and of system operation. The know­
ledge would be implemented in decision support sys­
tems and would be used by engineers planning a 
material handling system. 
R&D area 5.3: Computer-aided manufacturing 
(CAM) 
Description 
A computer-aided manufacturing system in this 
context addresses the management of factory opera-
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/93 
tions. In principle a CAM system acts as a high 
integrity information network that monitors a broad 
spectrum of inter-related tasks and asserts conse­
quent control on the basis of an overall manage­
ment strategy (ideally in real time). 
Design aims of a CAM system should include: 
(i) maximise assistance to human supervision and 
intervention for individual process tasks; 
(ii) processes to be individually programmable; 
(iii) interfaces to overall systems architectures as 
defined in 5.1, and other related production 
activities. 
(iv) possibility for introducing modifications and 
extensions without violating total systems 
concept. 
CAM software is an interrelated set of computer 
programs able to process, monitor and control the 
flow of manufacturing data needed at the various 
stages of production. In this context only the soft­
ware elements of CAM systems are considered. 
A clear rationalization effect can be expected if 
design data prepared with computer assistance are 
used directly for computer-aided preparation of 
production data and instructions such as workshop 
drawings, parts lists, process sequence plans, 
NC-programs, quality control programs, product 
test programs, etc. 
The requirements for the data base systems and data 
base management system for CAM should be care­
fully identified and formulated during the concep­
tual system definition and design phases. 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1 (third and fourth quarter): 
— define and specify in detail the structure and 
modularity of CAM system hardware and soft­
ware. This work should be tightly coupled to 
area 5.1.1, particularly the 'system structure' and 
the 'design rules' topics; 
— the consequent CAM definition should include 
such generic activities as planning, scheduling, 
machine programming, tool design and man­
agement, flow control, monitoring, data collec­
tion, materials handling, warehousing, inventory control, testing, repair, quality control, docu­
mentation, costing and purchasing; 
* 12th month: definition of CAM subsystems; 
recommendations for subsystem tool 
development (with emphasis on 
real-time operation) ; definition of 
development and implementation 
plan. 
Years 2 to 4: 
— develop selected CAM subsystems with an 
emphasis on high-integrity real-time operation, 
and integration in test-bed environment. 
* 24th month: phase 1 subsystem/tools ready for 
integration and testing. 
* 48th month: phase 2 subsystem/tools ready for 
integration and testing. 
Year 5: 
— conduct comprehensive tests of the overall inte­
grated CIM system(s) using software developed 
in years 2 to 4. 
* 60th month: prototype CAM system demon­
strable in test-bed application. 
5.5.7. 'Open CAM System allowing modular inte­
gration into factory management of a work­
shop structure in functional cells with various 
levels of automation' (Ref 418: A/84) 
The purpose of the project is to develop a CAM Sys­
tem with an open architecture. This CAM system will 
be applicable to machine as well as assembly activi­
ties. Although the system will be targetted at a specific 
manufacturing environment, the implementation 
methodologies and tools evolved in the course of the 
project will be applicable to a diverse range of manu­
facturing environments. The system will be imple­
mented in two pilot shops (machine shop and assembly 
shop), consisting of several cells with various levels of 
automation. As implementation proceeds, a new flexi­
ble machining cell, consisting of a group of machine 
tools, measuring machines, materials buffering equip­
ment and feeder robots will be incorporated into the 
system. 
5.3.2. 'Control Systems for Integrated Manufactur­
ing: the CAM Solution' (Ref. 477: A/84) 
The project will be focused on production activity con­
trol (PAC), the role of which is to close the loop 
between production planning and execution. The 
No C 11/94 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1. 85 
results will be especially applicable to small batch 
manufacturing environments. The goal of the project 
is to design, develop and test the software modules 
required to close the control loop, reducing human 
intervention and reaction time as much as possible, 
and relying on data automatically captured from the 
plant. 
R&D area 5.4: Flexible Manufacturing Systems 
Description 
For industries specializing in the manufacture of a 
wide variety of parts in low and medium volumes, 
the development of highly flexible, high productiv­
ity systems is an important goal. The major task of 
the suppliers of CIM equipment is to enhance the 
technology required for flexible automation. 
Machining centres for automatic machining of 
metal parts, systems for automatic loading and 
unloading of workpieces, and conveyor systems for 
automatically transferring workpieces from one 
machining process to another, are already available 
from many sources. A problem which still has to be 
attacked is the integration of machining centres into 
overall CIM systems, with proper acknowledgement 
of human factors. 
Further development is required in the area of auto­
mated assembly systems, and to enhance the capa­
bility of robots beyond the simple operations at 
present carried out. Major benefits would be 
obtained if effective communication with the design 
process could be achieved. It is also necessary to 
take advantage of developments in Advanced Infor­
mation Processing (AIP), and simulation systems. 
Research and development is also needed to reach 
two of the principal, and often conflicting, goals of 
all future automated plants, namely maintenance of 
consistently high product quality and maximum 
plant availability. 
R&D TOPICS 
The R&D topics to be addressed in this area are: 5.4.1. Flexible manufacturing systems: 
— definition and general structure of flex­
ible manufacturing systems; 
— communication and data transfer, 
— interface technology and human interac­
tion. 
5.4.2. Automated assembly: 
— automated assembly systems, 
— robot systems. 
5.4.3. Plant availability and quality optimization: 
— basic plant diagnosis technology, 
— diagnosis formulation, 
— action planning, 
— automated quality control and inspection 
5.4.4. Advanced control systems and concepts 
— specification of computing requirement 
— incorporation of Advanced Information 
Processing (AIP). 
5.4.1. Flexible manufacturing systems (Type A) 
Description 
— a general structure for flexible manufacturing 
systems including materials handling has to be 
defined. The major subsystems have to be iden­
tified, designed and implemented, 
— design and implementation of communications 
among subsystems on the basis of the Open Sys­
tem Interconnection (OSI) model, 
— definition of specific micro-electronic subsys­
tems and components to be implemented in 
special IC's. 
Programme (-)and Intermediate Objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— definition and specification of communication 
and interfaces among automatic equipment and 
other subsystems including human interaction. 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/95 
— definition of general architecture and subsys­
tems of FMS. 
* 12th month: define specification for interfaces 
between automatic equipment; 
define FMS system architecture and 
subsystems. 
Years 2 and 3: 
— continuation of Year 1 (decisions on communi­
cation interfaces) 
— definition and functional specification of dedi­
cated microelectronic circuits. 
— design of major subsystems for FMS. 
* 24th month: specification of dedicated micro­
electronic circuits for machine con­
trol systems; initiate major subsys­
tems for FMS, (including software 
for control systems). 
* 36th month: analysis of the application of auto­
matic equipment to a variety of pro-
' cesses; develop major subsystems in 
FMS. 
Years 4 and 5: 
— selection and analysis of manufacturing pro­
cesses and machines where automatic systems 
can be applied and implementation of new 
applications with an assessment of human 
factors. 
— implementation of major subsystems for FMS. 
* 48th month: develop automatic equipment for 
processes previously identified; 
complete development of major sub­
systems in FMS. 
* 60th month: develop automatic equipment with 
integrated process optimization; 
implement major subsystems in 
FMS. 
5.4.1.1. "The integration of welded fabrication 
within CIM'fRef 595: A/84) 
The project is concerned with the development of sub­
systems and control frameworks for the application of 
welded fabrication in CIM. A co-ordinated pro­
gramme is planned in which methods will be devel­
oped for generating, structuring, storing, and manipu­
lating control and output data at all stages of the 
fabrication process. To enable an integrated develop­
ment approach, the project will concentrate on a spe­
cific industrial sector and limited product range and 
the area chosen is shipbuilding. However, results 
generated in this project will have a much wider appli­cation within fabrication industries, and the rules for 
integration developed in this project will be applicable 
to the automation of other fabrication processes, e.g. 
high energy electron beam welding, laser welding and 
friction welding. 
5.4.2. Automated assembly (Type A) 
Description 
Computer automated assembly systems (CAAS): 
— extend existing systems to part identification, 
part mating; 
— algorithmic description of the assembly process; 
— application of AI in order to provide 'self-refer­
ential' control environments. 
Robot systems: 
Based on the preliminary design rules developed in 
5.1.1 and the development paths outlined there, 
there is a need to realize some systems for the inte­
gration of robots in CIM. These include: 
(a) a system to integrate the data flow between 
CAD and the robot. 
the CAD area includes the design of single parts 
and assemblies as well as the graphics/geome­
tric simulation of production processes and the 
linkage to process planning; 
(b) a system which provides a set of tool/proce­
dures to deal with the planning and installation 
of robots into production systems. This includes 
AI, support systems and simulation systems; 
Programme (— ) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 1: 
— review the draft design rules from 5.1, assess 
and comment; 
— review development paths in robotics identified 
in 5.1; 
— propose formal design rules for robots, in coop­
eration with R&D item 5.1.1; 
— identify and formulate strategies for safety 
requirements. 
* 12th month: evaluate AI strategies for robot 
systems. 
NoC 11/96 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
Year 2: 
Identify requirements for: 
— CAD to 'robot process' linkage, 
— robot languages, 
— robot control systems, 
— graphic simulation for robot planning, 
— safety, 
— sensors, 
— prepare rules for interface with CAM systems. 
* 24th month: establish rules for interfacing auto­
mated assembly systems with CAM; 
application of AI strategies to robot 
systems. 
Year 3: 
— consideration of the requirements identified in 
Year 2, in terms of multi-robot systems; 
— development of robot subsystems based on 
identified requirements and the use of AI; 
— development of generalized robot planning/ 
integration system within the framework of 
robot applications in CIM. 
* 36th month: incorporate AI strategies into auto­
mated assembly systems; develop 
generalized robot language. 
Year 4: 
— continuation of work for Year 3 and realization 
of priority subsystems. 
* 48th month: develop algorithmic structure for 
supervision of automated assembly 
systems. 
Year 5: 
— realize the generalized robot planning: integra­
tion system. 
* 60th month: develop integrated automated 
assembly system using real-time sen­
sor-driven control. 
5.4.2.1. 'Integrated Information Processing for 
Design, Planning and Control of Assembly' 
(Ref. 384: A/84) 
This project aims to demonstrate the principle of an 
integrated process for design, planning and control of 
small batch assemblies. The emphasis of the project will be on defining and automatically assembling the 
product, rather than on the manufacture of the piece 
parts. The project also aims to demonstrate the con­
cept of an integrated system for the complete assembly 
process including design planning, scheduling and 
control aspects, considering all inter dependencies and 
feedbacks from related assembly objects and pro­
cesses. 
5.4.2.2. 'Development of a Flexible Automated 
Assembly Cell and associated Human Fac­
tors Study'(Ref 534: A/84) 
The project is concerned with all aspects of the evalua­
tion and development of a programmable flexible 
automated assembly cell for mechanical objects of 
typically 0.5 metre cube size. The concept is based 
upon the perceived needs of an intended user but the 
project includes an assessment of the application of 
the system to industry generally. The project comprises 
five technological and two human factor sub areas. 
The technological factors are the use of robots with 
various other devices, including software development, 
the development of integrated sensors for robotic 
vision and optical data processing, the development of 
contactless inspection including integration, systems 
integration and a study of the applicability of the tech­
nology to future manufacturing. The human factors 
are concerned with work organisation and job design 
within the cell, skill levels, supervision, quality assur­
ance, maintenance and training issues and a study of 
the involvement of engineers and scientists in planning 
for human needs in the cell's operation. 
5.4.2.3. 'Operational Control for Robot System 
Integration into CIM' (Ref 75-623: A/83-
84) 
The project is intended to improve the integration of 
robots into computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) 
systems. Based on the design rules and the develop­
ment paths derived in the pilot phase of ESPRIT (Ref. 
75) the project will establish automated integration 
facilities for the operational areas of planning and 
programming. For typical industrial applications it is 
expected to implement a prototype of a computer 
aided planning system and of a CAD-Robot linkage 
by means of an off-line programming system for 
robots. Graphical simulation to aid robot planning 
and programming as a basic tool of the system will be 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/97 
analysed and implemented. A data management stra­
tegy will be derived to link the robot application into 
the CIM-framework. The possibilities for using AI 
techniques for robotic applications, including implicit 
programming methods, will be explored. 
5.4.3. Plant availability and quality optimization 
(type B) 
Research, develop and finally integrate the group of 
diagnostic/decision-making technologies essential 
for the design of fault-tolerant systems. The princi­
pal, and often conflicting, aims of maintaining both 
high product quality and maximum plant availabil­
ity must be pursued in order to achieve reliable, high 
integrity CIM systems. 
R&D is foreseen under four headings: 
1. Basic plant diagnosis technology involving 
methodologies of sensor signal data compres­
sion, system/machinery fault modelling, archi­
tecture and design of diagnostic systems, etc. 
2. Diagnosis formulation involving methodologies 
able to rank system/machinery faults thought to 
be either threatening plant availability or caus­
ing a fall-off in product quality. 
3. Action planning in the areas of initiating 
actions to avoid system shutdown, maximizing 
utilization in the case of partial failure, user 
guidance and maintenance planning. 
4. Automated Quality Control and Inspection to 
detect injurious product defects, ensure accepta­
ble product quality and provide potential diag­
nostic information 
5.4.3.1. 'A Systems Technology for Optimising the 
Tradeoffs between Plant Availability, Prod­
uct Quality and Safety' (Ref 504: B/84) 
The aim of this project is the development of a systems 
technology for automating the management of dis­
crete parts manufacturing plants based on maximising 
their availability, product quality and safety. A high 
percentage of the proposed R&D effort relates to the 
on-line processing of plant machinery health, tool per­
formance, product quality and safety data. The ena­
bling technologies include signal processing, expert 
systems, system modelling, action planning, sensor 
network and computer system design. 5.4.4. Advanced Control Systems and Concepts 
(Type B) 
Description 
— This topic is concerned with the development 
and implementation of new computing struc­
tures to facilitate real time control and intellig­
ence in CIM systems. 
The table below represents a possible approach: 
Year 2: 
— Analysis of computing structures to implement 
on line integrated CIM control systems. 
— Analysis and simulation of adaptive techniques 
— Analysis of hierarchical control strategies 
— Analysis of possible use of A.I.P. techniques to 
hierarchical control 
Year 3: 
— Design and implementation of new computing 
structures in Advanced Control Systems 
— Assessment of new network concepts to facili­
tate remote modeling and identification into the 
control concepts. 
— Design and implementation of the software sup­
port (stand alone or distributed control system) 
Year 4: 
— Evaluation of the real time control systems 
— Development of the software modules in rela­
tion to the programme objectives. 
— Assessment of the control system performance. 
Year 5: 
— Realisation of an integrated control system in 
relation to the manufacturing process 
— Incorporation of the advanced control identifi­
cation and intelligent knowledge based systems 
concepts in the final central systems package 
— Implications on the design and assessments of 
manufacturing equipment configurations.' 
R&D area 5.5: Subsystems and components 
Description 
A number of subsystems and components are 
required to implement CIM. Two topics have been 
NoC 11/98 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
identified as requiring colloborative effort. These 
are: 
5.5.1. Sensor Systems. 
5.5.2. Microelectronic subsystems. 
5.5.1. Sensor systems (Type A) 
Real time capture and interpretation of sensor data 
represent a major challenge, both in terms of hard­
ware and software. 
Prime application areas for sensor development 
include: 
— flexible parts feeding 
— force controlled assembly 
— monitoring in CNC machinery 
— 3D measurement 
— manipulative control 
— testing and inspection 
— tool condition detection and measurement 
— automatic diagnosis and repair 
The requirement is for: 
— real time capture and processing of complex 
images, especially 3 D images 
— tactile sensor feedback and real time sensor data 
processing 
— integration of multi-sensor information in com­
plex machining or assembly tasks 
— application independent sensor programming 
and standards developed with regard to inte­
grated VLSI chips. 
Programme and intermediate objectives 
12th month: 
— specification of high-speed algorithms which 
can be implemented in VLSI; 
— start specifications of VLSI combinations of 
imaging sensors and programmable pre-proces-
sors. Regarding algorithmic processors, the algo­
rithms may be based on the preliminary out­
come from AIP (3.2); 
— commence development of demonstrator 
model; 
— investigate AI techniques for sensor signal pro­
cessing; — specify hybrid electronic architecture. 
24th month: 
— development of sensor output processors; 
— development of the demonstrator models. 
36th month: 
— incorporation of VLSI processors; 
— continue development of sensor output proces­
sors; 
— incorporation of hybrid processing. 
48th month: 
— implementation of AI techniques and sensor 
demonstrators in, for example, control systems 
and image processing. 
60th month: 
— continue development and evaluation; 
— undertake exploratory work on advanced tech­
niques for inspection and image processing 
such as holographic methods 
— implementation of some selected pilot opera­
tions on the factory floor on projects initiated 
under 5.4.4. 
5.5.1.1. 'Exploitation of Real-time Imaging for A re 
Welding'(Ref 9: A/83) 
This project involves: 
— the evaluation and development of prototype 
image analysis systems using approaches already 
evolved by the contractors, or novel methods indi­
cated by the image analysis survey and results of 
an industrial study; 
— the identification, selection and specification of 
two initial industrial arc welding sensing tasks 
which will form the basis for applications-oriented 
development of adaptive control systems involving 
image analysis. 
5.5.1.2. 'General Purpose Sensory Controlled Sys­
tems for Parts Production' (Ref. 118: A/83) 
This project addresses the problems related to the 
production of intelligent industrial robots. Sophisti­
cated sensors for 2V2D and 3D imaging of objects and 
scenes using a variety of contact and non-contact 
techniques will be developed. These will be integrated 
into a demonstration set-up and a full system evalua­
tion completed. 
14. 1.85 Official Journal of the European Communities NoC 11/99 
5.5.1.3. 'Integrated Sensor-based Robot System' 
(Ref. 131 + 278: A/83-84) 
The objective of this project is to develop a sensor-
based system prototype (vision and tactile), intended 
for real time applications, in cooperation with indus­
trial robots for intelligent handling and/or assembly. 
Test-bed applications are bin-picking, and workpiece 
handling on a moving conveyor belt. — develop graphics primitives in VLSI 
— issue design methodology 
60th month: 
finalize/review/refine graphics primitives in 
VLSI. 
5.5.1.4. 'Computer-aided thermal Image Technique 
for Real-time Inspection of Composite 
Material'(Ref. 197: A/83) 
This project is concerned with research into imaging 
and image processing techniques using thermal scan­
ners for the development of a real time system for 
on-line inspection and monitoring of composite mater­
ials and products, in a mass production environment. 
5.5.2. Microelectronic subsystems (Type A) 
In order to compete successfully in the world mar­
kets for plant automation systems, it is essential to 
make maximum use of microelectronic technology. 
The objective is to realize subsystems required for 
the control of machines, robots or assembly systems 
on specialized chips. This will require close colla­
boration of automation specialists and semi-con­
ductor designers. 
Programme and Intermediate Objectives 
12th month: 
— design specification for functional areas of con­
trol systems suitable for custom integration 
24th month: 
— design and fabrication of chips 5.5.2.1. 'Integrated Electronic Subsystems for Plant 
Automation (Ref. 179: A/83) 
Within this project the functions performed by NC and 
Robot control systems are analysed and divided into 
subsystems. These will then be realised as general pur­
pose subsystem integrated circuits which would be 
suitable for a broad range of applications in NC and 
Robot control. In addition a common language for 
communication between the IC's and the system will 
be devised. 
R&D area 5.6: CIM systems applications 
Description 
In order to promote and support the more wide­
spread application of CIM, it is desirable to estab­
lish suitable support centres where work on CIM 
development and application can be carried out. In 
order to fulfil the needs for education, research and 
development, and demonstration, at least two such 
sites are thought to be necessary, one with an aca­
demic infrastructure but with a proven record of 
technology transfer, and one in a real manufacturing 
environment. 
To achieve this objective, the following projects and 
themes have been identified: 
36th month: 
— incorporation of chips into control systems 
— start definition of graphics primitives in VLSI 
— first results of design methodology for control 
systems and the functional mapping onto VLSI 
chips 
48th month: 
— test circuits in control systems and issue any 
specifications required 5.6.1. CIM application and development centres. 
— preparatory study 
— establishment of ESPRIT CIM applica­
tion and development facilities 
5.6.2. General topics for CIM support: 
— product design guidelines for automatic 
production; 
NoC 11/100 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 1.85 
— methodologies for selection and configu­
ration of CIM components 
— economic methodologies for evaluating 
investment in CIM systems; 
— interaction of CIM systems with organi­
sation, infrastructures and skill require­
ments 
— interaction of CIM systems with manage­
ment information systems. 
5.6.1. CIM application and development centres 
(Type A) 
5.6.1.1. Preparatory Study 
Evaluate alternative approaches by which the objec­
tives associated with the establishment of CIM 
application and development facilities may be 
achieved. The full range of possibilities should be 
explored within the context of Community and 
nationally based programmes, so as the optimum 
approach may be adopted. 
5.6.1.2. CIM Application and Development Centres 
Establish ESPRIT CIM development and applica­
tion sites where CIM technology and tools can be 
tested, demonstrated and developed. 
Programme (—) and Intermediate objectives (*): 
Year 2: 
— Preparatory study for CIM application and 
development sites. 
* 24th month: Complete preparatory study for 
establishment of sites. 
Years 3 and 4: 
— Formulate plans and select sites for: 
* 36th month: Formulate plans for development of 
CIM application and development 
facilities. 
* 48th month: Select suitable sites. 
Years 5 and 6: 
— Establish CIM application and development 
facilities. 
* 60th month: Complete detailed plans, undertake 
preparatory work in establishing 
facilities. 
* 72nd month: Complete the establishment of the 
facilities. 5.6.2. General Topics for CIM Support (Type B) 
The following topics are given as examples, but the 
list is non-exhaustive: 
— Product design guideline for automatic produc­
tion: 
Create an understanding and ability to design 
mechanical products for automatic manufactur­
ing. 
— methodologies for selection and configuration 
of CIM components. 
Develop tools and methodologies for selecting 
CIM components and tailoring CIM systems to 
meet specific company needs. 
— Economic methodologies for evaluating invest­
ment in CIM systems: 
Develop tools and methodologies for a correct 
economic evaluation of investment in CIM sys­
tems. 
— Interaction of CIM systems with organisation, 
infrastructures and skill requirements. 
Determination of the required charges in organ­
isation, infrastructure and skill requirements 
consequent upon the introduction of CIM sys­
tems. 
— Interaction of CIM systems with management 
information systems: 
Definition of data interchange between CIM 
systems and 'management information systems' 
(MIS). 
The purpose of these activities is to develop tools 
and facilities to promote successful CIM applica­
tions. 
5.6.2.1. 'Product Design for Automated Manufac­
ture and Assembly' (Ref 338: B/84) 
The objectives of this project will be two-fold. Firstly it 
is necessary to determine the range of manufacturing 
information which must be made available to the 
designer so that products are designed which are com­
patible with automated manufacturing and assembly 
techniques embodied in flexible machining and flexi­
ble assembly (including robotic assembly) systems. 
Secondly it is necessary to establish the basis on which 
this information is best made available to the designer 
using for example CAD systems. 
14. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 11/101 
5.6.2.2. 'Data Transfer Between Computer Inte­
grated Manufacturing Systems and Man­
agement Information Systems' (Ref. 319: 
B/84) 
The project will address the linkage of CIM and MIS 
systems in the context in which they must operate, 
namely, the management, technological and opera­
tional infrastructure of the enterprise and will relate 
this to the trends in information technology, the func­tional requirements of both hardware, software and 
operating systems, and the CIM vendor industry 
itself. Advances in computer technologies have created 
the opportunity for medium sized enterprises to apply 
sophisticated MIS-CIM techniques and 
hardware/software tools which were, up to very 
recently, only affordable by the largest enterprises. It 
is proposed therefore actively to test design concepts, 
techniques and prototype sub-systems in medium to 
small sized manufacturing environments.