A-design: Theory and implementation of an adaptive, agent-based method of conceptual design

A new theory of engineering design known as A-Design is introduced that models the workings of realistic engineering design in a complex adaptive system of interacting software agents. The methodology is general enough to be used on a variety of search problems, however the motivation behind the research is to create design configurations. The system constructs meaningful. designs from a catalog of electromechanical components based on a variety of user-defined objectives while accommodating changes that might occur in the focus of the problem.