Smart systems architecting: Computational intelligence applied to trade space exploration and system design

The design trade space of a complex system is vast, and overlooking potential architecture alternatives can have an adverse impact on the final outcome. This paper presents a Smart Systems Architecting (SSA) approach for generating and assessing architecture alternatives. Computationally intelligent techniques such as Evolutionary Algorithms (EA) are used to explore the design trade space for candidate architectures. A novel fuzzy architecture assessment approach is presented to quantitatively evaluate the set of possible solutions based on the decision-maker's preferences even in the presence of incomplete, subjective and ambiguous information. The broad applicability of Smart Systems Architecting is demonstrated by three specific approaches to fuzzy evolutionary search at different levels of design ambiguity. © 2009 World Scientific Publishing Company.