INTELLIGENT HYBRID SYSTEM FOR INTEGRATION IN DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE

An intelligent hybrid system (IHS) approach has been developed to inte grate various stages in the process of design and manufacture, includi ng product design specification, conceptual design, detail design, pro cess planning, costing and CNC manufacture. The IHS approach blends a rule-based system (RBS), artificial neural networks (ANNs), generic al gorithm (GA), hypermedia (HM) and CAD/CAE/CAM packages into a single e nvironment. The design and manufacture expertise is captured by the RE S and ANNs, while the other tasks, such as numerical analysis, design optimisation, engineering drawing and data processing, are performed u sing GA, HM and CAD/CAE/CAM. The RES works as a co-ordinator, controll ing the whole process. As an application of the approach, an IHS for m echanical power transmission systems has been developed. (C) 1998 Else vier Science S.A. All rights reserved.