Knowledge-Based Design Systems

This book describes the bases, approaches, techniques, and implementations of knowledge-based design systems, and advocates and develops new directions in design systems generally. A formal model of design coupled with the notion of prototypes provides a coherent framework for all that follows and is a platform on which a comprehension of knowledge-based design rests. The book is divided into three parts. Part I, Design, examines and describes design and design processes, providing the context for the remainder of the book. Part II, Representation and Reasoning, explores the kinds of knowledge involved in design and the tools and techniques available for representing and controlling this knowledge. It examines the attributes of design that must be described and the ways in which knowledge-based methods are capable of describing and controlling them. Part III, Knowledge-Based Design, presents in detail the fundamentals of the interpretation of design, including the role of expert systems in interpreting existing designs, before describing how to produce designs within a knowledge-based environment. This part includes a detailed examination of design processes from the perspective of how to control these processes. Within each of these processes, the place and role of knowledge is presented and examples of knowledge-based design systems given. Finally, the authors examine central areas of human design and demonstrate what current knowledge-based design systems are capable of doing now and in the future