Toward intelligent CAD systems

Abstract

Existing CAD systems cannot satisfy all the requirements of ‘real’ design. Many people would like to have more powerful and capable CAD systems. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to make CAD systems ‘intelligent’, because the limitations of current CAD systems result from the limitations inherent in the underlying conventional information processing technology. The conditions that allow systems to be considered as intelligent are discussed in the paper and some ideas are presented as to how to make such systems useful. The first half of the paper analyses why current conventional CAD systems are limited in their capabilities and consideration is given to overcoming these limitations. The author concludes that CAD systems must be ‘intelligent’ in the sense that they must be able to use knowledge dynamically to achieve the user's goals. The conditions, key concepts and a possible approach are discussed with a view to designing an intelligent CAD system. The second half of the paper presents an implementation of an intelligent CAD system developed along the lines suggested. Some examples are given. The system is called KAUS and it shows a potential, once fully implemented, to aid the human designer that has not been achieved by conventional CAD systems.