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From: gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston)
Subject: Ph.D. Final Oral Defense Announcement
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Reply-To: gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston)
Organization: Field Robotics Center, CMU
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 23:09:12 GMT
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                         Ph.D. Final Oral Defense
 
              A Genetic Methodology for Configuration Design
 
                             Gerald P. Roston
                   Department of Mechanical Engineering
                        Carnegie Mellon University
 
                       Thursday, 1 December, 1994
                9:00 am, Field Robotics Center, Room 100
 
                    ******************************
 
                               Abstract

In an increasingly competitive world, the ability to
efficiently produce viable artifact design alternatives is necessary
for organizations to succeed. For millennia, engineers have been using
design methodologies to assist in the configuration of new
artifacts. However, as these artifacts have grown in complexity, the
need for more capable design methodologies has increased. This thesis
presents a design methodology to aid the designer of complex artifacts
by generating viable artifact design alternatives for further
consideration. This methodology, called Genetic Design (GD), uses
formal grammars for artifact description and representation, evaluates
the artifacts automatically and manipulates the representations with
genetic programming-like operations.

Human designers and optimization codes are very good at improving the
performance of existing artifacts. However, due to economic
constraints imposed while designing new artifacts, human designers
tend to limit the range of alternative configurations considered. GD
can explore a wide breadth of the available design space, though at
shallow depth, and present viable alternatives to the human
designer. The combination of GD's ability to explore the design space
and the human engineer's ability to optimize existing configurations,
promotes the production of viable, new design concepts by avoiding the
inefficiencies associated with trial and error methods.

GD represents a bold attempt to devise a design methodology that can
be used across a broad range of application areas. This thesis
explores two applications of GD. In the first application, GD is used
to determine optimal dimensions and controllers for an abstracted
model of a frame-walking robot. In the second application, GD is used
for the simultaneous type, number and dimension synthesis of planar
mechanisms. 

--
Gerry Roston (gerry@cmu.edu)    | A knowledge of the existence of something
Field Robotics Center,          | we can not penetrate, of the manifestations
Carnegie Mellon University      | of the profoundest reason and the most
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213           | radiant beauty, which are only accessible
(412) 268-6568                  | to our reason in their most elementary forms
                                | - it is this knowledge and this emotion
The opinions expressed are mine | that constitute the truly religious attitude;
and do not reflect the official | in this sense, and in this alone, I am a
position of CMU, FRC, RedZone,  | deeply religious man.  Albert Einstein
or any other organization.      | 
