RATIONALE

"Campbell, Cagan & Kotovsky, A-Design"

M. Campbell, J. Cagan and K. Kotovsky, "A-Design: An Agent-Based
Approach to Conceptual Design in a Dynamic Environment", Research in
Engineering Design, Volume 11, Number 3, 1999, pp. 172-192



The A-Design system is a novel approach to configuration design that
uses multiple agents that effectively work in parallel on a set of
possible solutions to some requirements.  It resembles a genetic
algorithm in that it works on a population of solutions, evaluates
their fitness, and does some operations on some them that serve, like
the GA's crossover, to diversify the population.