Line selection expert system for control of scanning inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometers

Abstract

An expert system for control of a rapid scanning spectrometer to perform atomic emission spectrometry has been developed using the PROLOG language. The expert system can be “taught” the elemental composition of a given sample type. It uses this information (when available) to generate a line-search strategy which minimises the number of lines that need to be measured. The rules used by the system can be observed during system operation to allow a trace of the logic. Reading of the initial database takes no more than 6 s and then decisions are made in less than 1 s per line.