Automatic Design Method Research Articles

3404 進化計算を用いた室内空調装置の制御ロジックの自動設計(G1 一般セッション,未来社会を支えるものづくりとひとづくり(設計・システムから))

Recent years, an electronic technique has been developing remarkably, electronics control has been applied to various control systems. Many sensors and actuators have been implemented into those systems, and an energy efficiency and a performances have been improved more than before. However the system has been more complicated on the other hand, and much time is needed in order to develop the controller of the system. In this paper, a method of automatic controller design for those systems is described. In order to automate design of an electronic controller, a evolutionaly computation is applied. First, the framework how to apply the genetic algorithm to the automation of controller design is described. In particular, the coding of a chromosome is shown in detail. Next, how to make an evaluation function is represented with an air-conditioner as an example case, and the controller of the air-conditioner is developed automatically using our proposal framework. Finally, the evolutionary simulation is performed to confirm our framework.

LONGITUDINAL MOTION CONTROL OF INTELLIGENT VEHICLE

Firstly,vehicle longitudinal mathematic model based on medium-level complex engine model and non-linear brake model is given.Then,the complex plant controller automatic design method based on fuzzy logic and genetic algorithm is used to design fuzzy brake controller.And switch logic of throt- tle and brake is designed.Based on the brake controller and the switch logic,throttle controller is designed by using the same automatic design method.Throttle controller,brake controller and switch logic together constitute longitudinal motion con- troller(LMC).Lastly,validities of LMC in IV cruise control and adaptive cruise control are tested through simulations.The results show that the LMC can meet IV longitudinal control performances of high precision,strong robustness and smooth- ness.

A heuristic for the label printing problem

Label printing finds many applications in industry. However, this task is still labor intensive in many printing factories. Since each template can only accommodate a fixed number of labels, an important task is to work out the compositions of templates by allocating suitable labels to each template in order to fulfill the order requirements effectively. The template design could be rather arbitrary, which usually ends up with a lot of excessive printed labels. Enhancing the template design will significantly improve the efficiency of the printing process, and, at the same time, reduce the waste of resources. This motivates the study of more automatic design methods. In this paper, the problem is first formulated as a nonlinear integer programming problem. The main variables in the formulation are the compositions and the printing frequencies of templates. For practical purpose, each type of label is confined to one template only which allows automated packing and handling. The structure of the problems is carefully analyzed and a new algorithm is proposed. Numerical results show that the proposed method is a simple but effective way of generating good template designs.

Development of an Automated Design Method for Manufacture of Fabrics of Defined Structure

An automated method of designing technology for manufacturing fabrics of defined structure was developed. An algorithm was developed for calculation of fabrics of defined structure in designing the technology, consisting of determining the properties of the fibres used (tensile and compressive viscoelastic parameters, durability parameters, resistance to wear and repeated loads, hemicyclic characteristics); determination of the coarse fabric structure phase; calculation of warp and weft tension during frontal battening based on use of the linear theory of warp thread fibre tension in the “warp roller—dropper” zone and the weft thread pinch tension based on the linear theory of viscoelasticity; estimation of the loom threading tension using long-term strength criteria; determination of the maximum possible rotation rate of the main loom shaft; calculation of breakage of warp and weft threads based on the assigned properties of the fibres. Software was created for designing loom manufacture. The manufacturing process for production of an important number of fabrics was designed. The basic process parameters for manufacturing fabrics were determined.

Special issue on design automation methods and tools for microfludics-based biochips

Special issue on design automation methods and tools for microfludics-based biochips

Special issue on design automation methods and tools for microfludics-based biochips

Special issue on design automation methods and tools for microfludics-based biochips

Automatic design of space steel frame using practical nonlinear analysis

An automatic design method of steel frames using practical nonlinear analysis is developed. The geometric nonlinearity is considered by the use of stability functions. The transverse shear deformation effect in a beam–column is accounted for. A direct search method is used as an automatic design technique. The unit value of each member is evaluated by using LRFD interaction equation. The member with the largest unit value is replaced one by one with an adjacent larger member selected in the database. The weight of the steel frame is taken as an objective function. Load-carrying capacities, deflections, interstory drifts, and ductility requirement are used as constraint functions. Case studies of the planar portal frame and the space two-story frame are carried out.

A comparative study of software systems from the optimization viewpoint

Analysis technology is widely accepted and quite popular these days. Incorporation of the analysis result into a design process is a key factor for the success of an analysis area. A few design software products have been commercialized. Generally, they are trying to make an interface between various design methods and analysis software. Optimization is a typical automatic design method. The software products of optimization are investigated and compared for user convenience and algorithm performance. A few popular products are selected. A graphical user interface (GUI) is compared for capability and efficiency. The performances of the optimization algorithms are tested by mathematical and engineering examples, and the results are discussed.

Automatic design of space steel frame using practical nonlinear analysis

An automatic design method of steel frames using practical nonlinear analysis is developed. The geometric nonlinearity is considered by the use of stability functions. The transverse shear deformation effect in a beam–column is accounted for. A direct search method is used as an automatic design technique. The unit value of each member is evaluated by using LRFD interaction equation. The member with the largest unit value is replaced one by one with an adjacent larger member selected in the database. The weight of the steel frame is taken as an objective function. Load-carrying capacities, deflections, interstory drifts, and ductility requirement are used as constraint functions. Case studies of the planar portal frame and the space two-story frame are carried out.

Automatic design of fuzzy logic controller using a genetic algorithm—to predict power requirement and surface finish in grinding

We have developed a method for automatic design of fuzzy logic controller (FLC) using a genetic algorithm (GA). The performance of an FLC depends on its knowledge base (KB), which consists of membership function distributions (also known as data base) and rule base. To design a proper KB of the FLC, the designer should have a thorough knowledge of the process to be controlled. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to gather knowledge of the process beforehand. Thus, designing the proper KB of an FLC is not an easy task. In this paper, a new approach for designing the KB of an FLC (using a GA) is proposed and its effectiveness is compared to a previous approach based on GA-fuzzy combination for making predictions of power requirement and surface finish in grinding (a machining process to obtain smooth surface on the work).

要求出力特性を満足する永久磁石同期電動機自動設計手法

要求出力特性を満足する永久磁石同期電動機自動設計手法

An automatic design method for compact acoustic systems by the genetic algorithm

AbstractIn this paper, an automatic method for the design of compact acoustic systems, using the genetic algorithm, is proposed for improvement of degraded sensitivity caused by leakage. In the present method, an analysis based on the acoustic equivalent circuit is used. The equivalent circuit and the acoustic parameters of the circuit are designed in such a way that the sound pressure frequency characteristics are contained with the range based on the GSM (ETSI EN 300 903) specifications and that the sensitivity deterioration is improved. The PfGA (Parameter‐free Genetic Algorithm) is used in the design of the circuit configuration, and the genetic algorithm of Michalewicz is used for the design of acoustic parameters. As a result, an equivalent circuit is obtained that realizes characteristics not significantly affected by leakage. The present method can be applied to various compact acoustic systems such as cellular phones and provides useful information for actual design. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 87(3): 1–9, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjc.10149

Adaptable architecture generation for embedded systems

Architecture generation is the first step in the design of software systems. Many of the qualities that the final software system possesses are usually decided at the architecture development stage itself. Thus, if the final system should be usable, testable, secure, high performance, mobile and adaptable, then these qualities or non-functional requirements (NFRs) should be engineered into the architecture itself. In particular, recently adaptability is emerging as an important attribute required by almost all software systems. Briefly, adaptability is the ability of a software system to accommodate changes in its environment. Embedded systems are usually constrained both in hardware and software. Current adaptable architecture development methods for embedded systems are usually manual and ad hoc––there are almost no comprehensive systematic approaches to consider NFRs at the architecture development stage. While there are several examples of approaches to generate architectures based on functional requirements, we believe that there are very few techniques that consider NFRs such as adaptability during the process of architecture generation. In this paper we present an automated design method that helps develop adaptable architectures for embedded systems by developing a tool called Software Architecture Adaptability Assistant (SA3). SA3 helps the developer during the process of software architecture development by selecting the architectural constituents such as components, connections, patterns, constraints, styles, and rationales that best fit the adaptability requirements for the architecture. The developer can then complete the architecture from the constituents chosen by the tool. SA3 uses the knowledge base properties of the NFR Framework in order to help automatically generate the architectural constituents. The NFR Framework provides a systematic method to consider NFRs, in particular their synergies and conflicts. We validated the architectures generated by SA3 in a type of embedded system called the vocabulary evolution system (VES) by implementing the codes from the generated architectures in the VES and confirming that the resulting system satisfied the requirements for adaptability. A VES responds to external commands through an interface such as ethernet and the vocabulary of these commands changes with time. The validation process also led to the discovery of some of the shortcomings of our automated design method.

Fast ray-tracing technique for electromagnetic field prediction in mobile communications

Ray-optical propagation models are often used for the prediction of the field strength (and delay spread) in wireless mobile communication networks. However, these models suffer from long computation times. For large areas in urban or indoor scenarios, the computation times are in the range of hours which is too long for the planning of mobile radio networks. In this paper, we present a fast algorithm based on a ray-tracing technique with scalable approximation accuracy for field strength prediction in cellular mobile network planning together with a preprocessing of the geographical database. Automatic network design methods perform a huge number of field strength estimations and, therefore, require a fast and accurate approximation. However, common prediction techniques either give only rough estimations or are too complex for fast evaluation. The proposed new ray-tracing technique obtains its speedup by taking advantage of the topological information inherent in the used triangulation data structure of the investigated terrain. The applicability of the fast ray-tracing technique is demonstrated for a single transmitter scenario.

An Automatic Design of the Artificial Ant Control Circuit Using Genetic Algorithm Based on the Coexistence of Heterogeneous Populations.

We have already proposed a new automatic logic circuit design method using genetic algorithm based on the coexistence of heterogeneous populations. In this letter, we apply the proposed method to the design of the artificial ant control circuit, and clarify that the proposed method is effective also to the design of the logic circuit of which the I/O specification is not given beforehand.

FAST: FFT ASIC automated synthesis

In this paper, an automated design method for the synthesis of a high-throughput fast Fourier transform (FFT) ASIC is presented, applicable to any power-of-two FFT sizes. The method is based on a C++ program named FAST which has been developed as a friendly dialogue-window interface to help the designer, first to obtain a bit-true FFT architecture to attain the desired precision performance and then to derive validated gate-level netlists for the selected silicon technology. As a result, a substantial reduction of the design time is achieved. The FFT processor implements a mixed 2/4 radix algorithm with a Cascade Bi and Jones architecture. The relevant VLSI design is based on a parametric, highly flexible VHDL description created using a design-reuse approach. According to the FAST methodology, two prototypes (64- and 1024-point FFT processors) have been developed resulting very interesting in terms of hardware complexity and precision performance when compared with state of the art; in particular, the 64-point FFT processor exhibits an area–time product nearly 30% lower than previous works following automatic-design methodologies.

행위 기반 로봇에서의 행위의 자동 설계 기법

An automatic design method of behaviors in behavior-based robotics is proposed. With this method, a robot can design its behaviors by itself without aids of human designer. Automating design procedure of behaviors can make the human designer free from somewhat tedious endeavor that requires to predict all possible situations in which the robot will work and to design a suitable behavior for each situation. A simple reinforcement learning strategy is the main frame of this method and the key parameter of the learning process is significant change of reward value. A successful application to mobile robot navigation is reported too.

Gradually layered alternated-substrate synthesis.

Gradually layered alternated-substrate synthesis (GLASS) is an automatic design method for optical coatings, which permits a gradual increase in the layer count of a stack while its optical properties are improved. This method does not require any starting design but only the design target and the list of allowed coating materials. In contrast to the needle technique, in which the coating is optimized between its two real external media, with new layers added inside the coating, the GLASS method adds new layers at the end of the design and uses coating materials as one external medium. This external medium provides new layers and is changed for another coating material each time a new layer is added. At the end, the coating must be matched to the real external medium that was not used during the design procedure.

Automatic design for power systems

AbstractAn automatic design method for power systems to control electric loads required by customers and to ensure the power supply for the loads is described. This method features (I) an electric unit model including the possible connections among the electric units, (II) knowledge association networks to reduce maintenance cost of the knowledge base and to improve efficiency in selecting/specifying electric units, (III) a planning algorithm to find electric paths to control the electric loads and to ensure the power supply, and (IV) the reactive redesign of the automation of editing power systems. APEC3 (Advanced Plant Engineering Cycle tool version 3) is an automatic design tool for power systems that supports electrical engineering processes in developing single line diagrams, specification balance statements (design rationales), and item lists. When engineers modify unit specifications, APEC3 invokes the redesign function which automatically changes the specifications of all relevant units. To evaluate the effectiveness of the method, APEC3 was used in designing practical power systems of steel plants. The results showed that APEC3 can reduce the design time to one‐eighth that of the usual design time. Therefore, the engineers can find optimal specifications of the power systems by evaluating a number of possibilities. © 2002 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 139(2): 36–45, 2002; DOI 10.1002/eej.1151

Modeling architectural design objectives in physically based space planning

Physically based space planning is a means for automating the conceptual design process by applying the physics of motion to space plan elements. This methodology provides for a responsive design process, which allows a designer to easily make decisions whose consequences immediately propagate throughout the design. It combines the speed of automated design methods with the flexibility of manual design methods, while adding a highly interactive quality and a sense of collaboration with the design itself. In our approach, the designer creates a space plan by specifying and modifying graphic design objectives rather than by directly manipulating primitive geometry. The plan adapts to the changing state of objectives by applying the physics of motion to its elements. For design objectives to affect a physically based space plan, they need to apply appropriate forces to space plan elements. Space planning can be separated into two problems, determining topological properties and determining geometric properties. Design objectives can then be categorized as topological or geometric objectives. Topological objectives influence the location of individual spaces, affecting how one space relates to another. Geometric objectives influence the size and shape of space boundaries, affecting the dimensions of individual walls. This paper focuses on how to model a variety of design objectives for use in a physically based space planning system. We describe how topological objectives, such as adjacency and orientation can be modeled to apply forces to space locations, and how geometric objectives, such as area, proportion, and alignment, can be modeled to apply forces to boundary edges.