Evolutionary design in a multi-agent design environment

Abstract

This paper presents a novel evolutionary design approach in a multi-agent design environment. Multi-agent system architecture offers a promising framework for dynamically managing cooperative agents in a distributed environment while the tree structure based generic algorithm provides a foundation for supporting evolutionary and innovative design abilities. Design is a complex knowledge discovery process. Creative design is a human trait that is not easily converted into a computational tool. Rather than to implement the innovative design by computers, this environment is used to stimulate the imagination of designers and extend their thinking space. It wants to explore a feasible and useful evolutionary approach in a distributed environment that will give the designers concrete help for the creative designs. This approach is illustrated by a mobile phone design example, which used binary algebraic expression tree to form sketch shapes and a feature based product tree to produce component combination choices. Because evolution is guided by human selectors, the evolutionary algorithm is not complex. It shows that approach is able to generate some creative solutions, demonstrating the power of explorative evolution.