Agent-Based Synthesis of Electromechanical Design Configurations

A new automated approach to engineering design known as A-design is presented that creates design configurations through the interaction of software agents. By combining unique problem solving strategies, these agents are able to generate solutions to open-ended design problems. The A-design methodology makes several theoretical claims through its combination of multiagent systems, multiobjective design selection, and stochastic optimization, and is currently implemented to solve general electromechanical design problems. While this paper presents an overview of the theoretical basis for A-design, it primarily focuses on the method for representing electromechanical design configurations and the reasoning of the agents that construct these configurations. Results from an electromechanical test problem show the generality of the functional representation. [S1050-0472(00)00701-7]