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Automatic Design Synthesis and Optimization of Component-Based Systems by Evolutionary Algorithms
P.P. Angelov1, Y. Zhang1, J.A. Wright1, V.I. Hanby2, and R.A. Buswell1
1Dept of Civil and Building Engineering
Loughborough University
Loughborough, LE11 3TU
Leicestershire, United Kingdom
{P.P.Angelov,Y.Zhang,J.A.Wright}@Lboro.ac.uk
2Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development
De Montfort University
Leicester
LE7 9SU, United Kingdom
VHanby@dmu.ac.uk
Abstract. A novel approach for automatic design synthesis and optimization using evolutionary algorithms (EA) is introduced in the paper. The approach applies to component-based systems in general and is demonstrated with a heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems problem. The whole process of the system design, including the initial stages that usually entail significant human involvement, is treated as a constraint satisfaction problem. The formulation of the optimization process realizes the complex nature of the design problem using different types of variables (real and integer) that represent both the physical and the topological properties of the system; the objective is to design a feasible and efficient system. New evolutionary operators tailored to the component-based, spatially distributed system design problem have been developed. The process of design has been fully automated. Interactive supervision of the optimization process by a human-designer is possible using a specialized GUI. An example of automatic design of HVAC system for two-zone buildings is presented.
LNCS 2724, p. 1938 ff.
lncs@springer.de
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003