A knowledge-based approach to requirements analysis

Requirements analysis is knowledge intensive and requires an expert to understand what the user needs. In this research, not only the ordinary functional requirements are collected, but also the non-traditional information which is the non-functional requirements like the quality of operations or the background information for constructing the requirements are gathered through a knowledge base support. Different kinds of information collected are stored and organized in a knowledge base and can be used as the source of user input in the latter phases of software development.;This research is a result of applying techniques from the artificial intelligence field to software engineering problems. With a knowledge-based support, it offers a systematic way toward requirements analysis, specification production, prototype generation, specification debugging, and code transformation.;Algorithms and procedures are provided for constructing interface language to the user, organizing the knowledge base, and applying the knowledge base to different tasks. A non-monotonic reasoning technique is used for handling the specification and the update of the knowledge base. A prototype system, called Requirements Analysis and Knowledge Elicitation System (RAKES), is introduced as an example to describe this approach. Algorithms for knowledge-based specification debugging are also developed. A guide to apply this approach to other software engineering discipline such as transformation and quality assurance is also discussed in detail.