Intelligent Computer Systems in Engineering Design

Thisintroductory book discusses how to plan and build useful, reliable,maintainable and cost efficient computer systems for automated engineeringdesign. The book takes a user perspective and seeks to bridge the gap betweentexts on principles of computer science and the user manuals for commercialdesign automation software. The approach taken is top-down, following the pathfrom definition of the design task and clarification of the relevant designknowledge to the development of an operational system well adapted for its purpose.This introductory text for the practicing engineer working in industry coversmost vital aspects of planning such a system. Experiences from applications ofautomated design systems in practice are reviewed based on a large number ofreal, industrial cases. The principles behind the most popular methods indesign automation are presented with sufficient rigour to give the userconfidence in applying them on real industrial problems. This book is alsosuited for a half semester course at graduate level and has been complementedby suggestions for student assignments grown out of the lecture notes of twopostgraduate courses given annually or biannually during the last ten years atthe Product development program at the School of Engineering at JönköpingUniversity.