In professional practice, many designers collect and maintain personal notes as guidelines about experiences and insights for handling technical problems and design situations. An intelligent personal assistant (IPA) can act as a database for these notes, making the entire design process more efficient. Based on real industrial procedures, this book contains practical examples for professionals and students interested in real implementations of knowledge based systems in engineering. It integrates two major ideas: a computer system integrating computer design tools and a computer system fulfilling the role of an intelligent personal assistant. This user-friendly approach to the main ideas, concepts and techniques shows how an IPA can serve as a significant and fruitful knowledge based technique in engineering design.

Inhalt

1. Introduction to the Problems of Knowledge-based Engineering 1.1 The Role of Knowledge in Design 1.2 Concepts of Design Rationale 1.2.1 Design Knowledge Repositories 1.2.2 Introduction to the Concept of an Intelligent Personal Assistant 1.3 Examples Explaining the Sense of Knowledge in Engineering Design 2. The Nature of the Personal and the Team-based Design Process 3. Survey of Engineering Knowledge Representations 4. Survey of Intelligent Personal Assistant Software Concepts 5. A Common Model of an Intelligent Personal Assistant Concept 6. Intelligent Personal Assistant - Concepts for Solving Integration 7. Intelligent Personal Assistant - Design Process Modelling 8. Intelligent Personal Assistant - Knowledge Modelling 9. Intelligent Personal Assistant - Optimisation 9.1 Multiobjective Optimisation Layer 9.2 Formal Model of a Machine Design Problem 9.3 Two-level Optimisation Method 9.4 Concepts of Criteria Space Ordering 9.5 Relationships Between Different Concepts of Criteria Space Ordering 9.6 A Survey of Selected Multiobjective Optimisation Methods 9.6.1 Methods Based on the Value Function Concept 9.6.2 Method of Interactive Multiobjective Optimisation 9.6.3 Method of Constraints and Utopia Solution 9.6.4 Lexicographic Approach 9.6.5 Characteristics of Multiobjective Optimisation Methods 9.7 Additional Assumptions in the Formulation of Large Optimisation Problems in Machine Design 9.8 Method of Leading and Related Sub-problems 10. Intelligent Personal Assistant - Implementation 11. Intelligent Personal Assistant - Unified Framework References Further Reading Index