TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION OF PRODUCT EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN BASED ON CONFIGURATION IN MASS CUSTOMIZATION MODE

Product customization has been recognized as an effective means to implement mass cus-tomization （MC）. A new theory and method for MC-oriented evolutionary design of configuration product is presented based on the study of developing law of evolutionary design in integrated envi-ronment, which focuses on the innovation and reuse properties of configuration product. The key technologies for general requirement modeling in quick response to customer requirement, multi-level stepwise configuration optimization driven by customer requirement and evolutionary deduction of product variable structure based on configuration association are thoroughly investigated. The suc-cessful application of the presented method in the development of real-life products demonstrates its utility, flexibility and robusticity.

Evolutionary Design of Fault-Tolerant Digital Circuit Based on Cartesian Genetic Programming

In many areas, reliability of the digital circuits has become the key factor to restrict circuit development. Fault-tolerant design is the commonly used method to improve the reliability of digital circuits. The current fault-tolerant design methods are based on triple modular redundancy( TMR) or multiple modular redundancy( MMR). These redundancy designs rely on the experience of the designers,and the designed circuits have poor adaptabilities to a complex environment. However, evolutionary design of digital circuits does not rely on prior knowledge. During the evolution, some novel and optimal circuit topologies can be found, and the evolved circuits can feature strong adaptive capacities. Based on Cartesian genetic programming( CGP), a novel method for designing fault-tolerant digital circuits by evolution is proposed,key steps of the evolution are introduced,influences of function sets on evolution are investigated,and as a preliminary result,an evolved full adder with high fault-tolerance is shown.

An Interactive Evolutionary Environment for Creative Design

A creative and/or innovative computer aided design environment is developed around the concept of an evolutionary optimization algorithm. Designs are generated within a set of prescribed design frameworks using a problem specific encoding and modified through operations including recombination, crossover and mutation. Evaluation of all candidate designs is performed by a user through a graphical user interface. A set of problems involving the creation of graphic images is presented. The examples include the generation of a set of two dimensional polygonal shapes, fractal images, path generation from a multi-degree freedom mechanical planar linkage and a mathematically prescribed pattern generation from a graphic design application utilized in quilting. Post design evaluation of the user input to the process provides insight into the individuals design strategy as well as determination of common user attributes in the creative design process.

PRODUCT GENE REPRESENTATION AND ACQUISITION METHOD BASED ON POPULATION OF PRODUCT CASES

The representation and acquisition of a product gene is a crucial problem in product evolutionary design. A new methodology of product gene representation and acquisition from a population of product cases is proposed, and the methodology for product evolutionary design based on a population of product cases is realized. By properly classifying product cases according to its product species, the populations of product cases are divided and a model is established. Knowledge of the scheme design is extracted and formulated as the function base, principle base, and structure base, which are then combined to form a product gene. Subsequently, the product gene tree is created and represented by object-oriented method. Then combining this method with the evolutionary reasoning technology, an intelligent and automatic evolutionary scheme design of product based on the population of product cases is realized. This design method will be helpful in the processing of knowledge formulation, accumulation, and reuse, and in addressing the difficulty of acquiring design knowledge in traditional design. In addition, the disadvantages of manual case adaptation and update in case-based reasoning can be eliminated. Moreover, by optimizing the design scheme in multiple levels and aspects of product function, principle, and structure etc., the level of creativity in the scheme design can be improved.