ABSTRACT
A-Design is a multi-agent computational system that automates the conceptual design process and is capable of solving several electromechanical design problems. A-Design takes input and output constraints for a desired electromechanical device and produces an array of conceptual designs that satisfy the problem constraints. In order to solve a design problem, the system initially generates a population of candidate designs. These candidates are then evaluated along multiple dimensions, and all but the best candidates are eliminated before another iteration of design generation begins. A-Design already had the ability to examine a group of designs and extract common subsets of electromechanical components that appear in every design of the group. The ACT-R system may also provide the basis for an expanded version of A-Design which attempt to capture some of the cognitive processes underlying design. A-Design was tested on a number of design problems to see if knowledge learned in one problem could be transferred successfully both within and across problems.
