The role of artificial intelligence as 'text' within design

The paper describes a new approach to artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in design. This approach argues that AI can be seen as 'text', or in other words as a medium for the communication of design knowledge and information between designers. This paper will apply these ideas to reinterpreting an existing knowledge-based system (KBS) design tool, that is, CADET - a product design evaluation tool. The paper will discuss the authorial issues, amongst others, involved in the development of AI and KBS design tools by adopting this new approach. Consequently, the designers' rights and responsibilities will be better understood as the knowledge medium, through its concern with authorship, returns control to users rather than attributing the system with agent status. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Product intelligence in industrial control: Theory and practice

This paper explores the evolving industrial control paradigm of product intelligence. The approach seeks to give a customer greater control over the processing of an order - by integrating technologies which allow for greater tracking of the order and methodologies which allow the customer [via the order] to dynamically influence the way the order is produced, stored or transported. The paper examines developments from four distinct perspectives: conceptual developments, theoretical issues, practical deployment and business opportunities. In each area, existing work is reviewed and open challenges for research are identified. The paper concludes by identifying four key obstacles to be overcome in order to successfully deploy product intelligence in an industrial application. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Enhancing and developing the practical optimisation capabilities and intelligence of automatic design software

In the modern engineering design cycle the use of computational tools becomes a neces- sity. The complexity of the engineering systems under consideration for design increases dramatically as the demands for advanced and innovative design concepts and engineering products is expanding. At the same time the advancements in the available technology in terms of computational resources and power, as well as the intelligence of the design software, accommodate these demands and make them a viable approach towards the chal- lenge of real-world engineering problems. This class of design optimisation problems is by nature multi-disciplinary. In the present work we establish enhanced optimisation capabil- ities within the Nimrod/O tool for massively distributed execution of computational tasks through cluster and computational grid resources, and develop the potential to combine and benefit from all the possible available technological advancements, both software and hardware. We develop the interface between a Free Form Deformation geometry manage- ment in-house code with the 2D airfoil aerodynamic efficiency evaluation tool XFoil, and the well established multi-objective heuristic optimisation algorithm NSGA-II. A simple airfoil design problem has been defined to demonstrate the functionality of the design sys- tem, but also to accommodate a framework for future developments and testing with other state-of-the-art optimisation algorithms such as the Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) and the Multi-Objective Tabu Search (MOTS) techniques. Ultimately, heav- ily computationally expensive industrial design cases can be realised within the presented framework that could not be investigated before. © 2012 by the authors. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.

Enhancing and developing the practical optimisation capabilities and intelligence of automatic design software

In the modern engineering design cycle the use of computational tools becomes a necessity. The complexity of the engineering systems under consideration for design increases dramatically as the demands for advanced and innovative design concepts and engineering products is expanding. At the same time the advancements in the available technology in terms of computational resources and power, as well as the intelligence of the design software, accommodate these demands and make them a viable approach towards the challenge of real-world engineering problems. This class of design optimisation problems is by nature multi-disciplinary. In the present work we establish enhanced optimisation capabilities within the Nimrod/O tool for massively distributed execution of computational tasks through cluster and computational grid resources, and develop the potential to combine and benefit from all the possible available technological advancements, both software and hardware. We develop the interface between a Free Form Deformation geometry management in-house code with the 2D airfoil aerodynamic efficiency evaluation tool XFoil, and the well established multi-objective heuristic optimisation algorithm NSGA-II. A simple airfoil design problem has been defined to demonstrate the functionality of the design system, but also to accommodate a framework for future developments and testing with other state-of-the-art optimisation algorithms such as the Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) and the Multi-Objective Tabu Search (MOTS) techniques. Ultimately, heavily computationally expensive industrial design cases can be realised within the presented framework that could not be investigated before. ©2012 AIAA.