CAE package software such as the structural, fluid dynamics and electromagnetic systems are being widely used on the design site. In addition, 3D-CAD technologies are positioned as key enabler to innovate product development processes. Especially, digital prototyping using 3D-CAD and CAE is being put to practical use as to shorten of development lead time, to reduce cost and to improve quality. This review is concerning about the recent progress of the optimization technology using 3D-CAD and CAE coupling and applications of digital prototyping are also described.

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Design optimization has largely remained an engineering endeavor. Yet many product decisions aremade based on business criteria derived from economic, investment, and marketing considerations. These decisions are presented to the engineers who must then optimize the design within the given criteria and constraints. We propose the hypothesis that in a significant number of situations engineering optimization can be integrated with the social and business environment where decisions are made and thus reach substantially better decisions for the designing enterprise and society. Since the foundation of this work is decision models, a key challenge remains the construction of models of proper fidelity for the integrated enterprise-wide decisions. Engineers who are willing to invest in such modeling knowledge are likely to have strong positive impact on the technological decisions made by enterprises and society.

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Recently the recycle amount of electric, mechanical parts and appliances in artifacts have increased. These parts use valuable rare metals such as PGM and Au that are included occasionally little additives. Rare metals are maldistributed in the world and most of them produced in small quantities. A small amount of rare metals usage in the appliances causes a large loss of rare metal resources because of the difficulty of recycle method economically. The actual recycle technological methods including physical and chemical separation methods should be considered in the design of electric, mechanical parts and appliances.

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Analog processing unit is considered for self-maintenance artifacts. This paper describes the basic operating concept and benefits of such analog data processing. ASIC implementation is also performed.

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This paper discusses the temporal co-creation problem between self and others. First, it shows some problems in the time production or multi-sensory timing integration. Secondly, it introduces our experiment. The results showed the interpersonal cooperation and sensory-dependent features of rhythm production with the longitudinal data analysis.

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This paper describes a new approach for integration of facility planning and layout planning using self-organization. The self-organization method is proposed to generate facility layout plans autonomously according to the material flow which emerges from the local interactions among production elements. In addition, facility number decision rule is introduced to the self-organization method. Finally, the both planning methods are integrated. A case study is presented for semiconductor manufacturing, in which it is difficult to find a proper plan because of large scale of the system and complex process flow. The effectiveness of the proposed method is discussed in the computer simulations by comparing with the current facility layout which is made by human experts in terms of WIP, TAT and the accumulated traveling mileage of products.

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In this paper, we will develop prediction system of accident of the system by using radius basis function network (RBFN). In monitoring the machine, although it is connected on line, it is sometimes difficult to store or transfer all data that it corrects. In stochastic way of doing diagnosis, they need continuous data to find mean value and standard deviation. Beside that it has no meaning when data has two steady states. However, in our system, we can express situation of steady states even if they have more than two steady states. By using actual data, we will show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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To make reasonable plans for maintenance, analyzing past incident records is necessary. However, details of these records are usually written by natural texts and it is difficult to acquire information such as trends and distribution from them. In this paper, coding is introduced as a technique for adding semantic level structures to texts. The authors propose a text mining method for coding which facilitates users generating codes and annotating codes on sentences by showing sets of candidate sentences to users. The method utilizes clustering and machine learning techniques. The proposed method shows its efficiency thorough analyzing real incident data.

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In harsh radiation environment, conventional semiconductor devices are not usable for their high sensitivity to the crystal defects. In place of conventional semiconductors, we propose a new gas-microelectronics based on narrow strips and control grids operated in a noble gas. Basic structures and possible logic devices based on this method is shown in terms of micro fabrication techniques.

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On the satellite system on a satellite's orbit, human preservation is impossible. Consequently, the reliability demand in a satellite system can search for a very high level as compared with ground apparatus. Satellite system requires very high reliability as compared with ground system. This is one of the big factors of a cost rise of the whole system. This paper describes the method which is neither the quality control-technique of each element, nor the technique of adding a redundant system on the design process of satellite system We examine the space system which performs functional preservation "soft fail" with self-recovery.

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Abstract. In the environment such as outer space where we cannot maintain the artifacts, it is the robustness that is important for artifacts. Thus the system which has the information processing circuit realizing self-maintenance function is desirable. So far some approach is tried to realize self-maintenance function using the qualitative reasoning technique. In this study, we try to apply distributed information processing technique to this qualitative reasoning information processor, by arranging many operating units with relatively low performance onto an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Now we are investigating the way mounting the self-maintenance logic by realizing the basic operating processor onto an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array).

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Recently, we have been facing with the environmental problems. So the social system must be transformed to a sustainable cycle-oriented social system immediately. A considerable number of studies has been conducted on environmental problems. However, those studies focused on optimizing the material flow and did not focus on the consumer's behavior. In this paper, we discuss the consumer's value creation. By the consumer's value creation, we believe that we can form the sustainable cycle-oriented social system. In this paper, therefore, we show the database, which helps the consumers to do the value creation, and we inspect our belief by means of a computer simulation.

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This paper proposes an ecodesign support methodology of services using QFD (Quality Function Deployment) and AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) based on the RSP (Receiver State Parameter)-based service model, which the authors have already constructed. Four types of evaluations in an ecodesign process are proposed. Clothes washing services are applied to the proposed methods and the effectiveness is demonstrated.

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In order to reduce the environmental load caused by a mass waste-producing society, it is very important to achieve closed-loop product life cycles. To do so, it is necessary to realize Inverse Manufacturing. However, there is not only physical life but also value life which terminates because of minor functions. We focus on extension of this product value life and propose the design methodology of Upgradeable products. To do this, we create an upgrade plan. And to make the plan more realistic and flexible, future technological trends and user demand must be predicted. Generally, user demand is assumed to be influenced by technological trends. Based on this assumption, this paper suggests producing a general upgrade plan that considers flows from technological trends to user demands, and reports the progress of implementation of planning support system for upgradeable product design. Furthermore, we also propose the way to correct upgrade plan flexibly to respond to sudden event in the future which is expressed as the change of product components.

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Generally speaking, it is difficult to predict the behavior of a system consisted of complicated agents, such as a social system and to control the system. Although an Indirect Control technique has been brought to public attention, the concrete Indirect Control methodology has not been established yet. This study applies an Indirect Control to an environmental problem and uses the agent-based artificial society. Then, in order to form a cycle-oriented social system the methodology is proposed by verifying changes of the disposal rate in the social system. In this paper, the interaction among consumers considered to take a big role in a sustainable society is introduced to the methodology. Thereby, our model can be close to the actual society and the sensitivity analysis can also be effective.

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Today, predicting the vibration characteristics in early design stages has come to occupy an important position for most of the development divisions of mechatronics equipment makers. In order to meet the request, Finite Element Analysis with feedback control by using MSC. Nastran and its TF (Dynamic Transfer Function) bulk data is proposed. In this paper, the usefulness of this method is demonstrated by an example of the analysis of hypothetical equipment named Laser Pointer System, where, the sensor locations of the control system ware optimized thought two approaches. One method is analyzing a structural normal mode that transformed by using self-developed DMAP (Direct Matrix Abstraction Program) in MSC. Nastran. It extracts the elastic deformation of a vibration mode by eliminating the rigid body motion included in the normal mode. It was found that the vibration could be optimally suppressed by aligning the sensors with the target point on the transformed mode on a straight line. Another method is using iSIGHT, the optimization software. By choosing design value as node IDs of sensors, the optimal sensor locations ware deduced that gives equivalent, or even better control result over the first method.

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This paper presents "Discrete Standing Wave Tire Model (DSWT)" that is the experimental modeling method for tires. DSWT consists of a new modal analysis method for cylindrical structures and a wave equation identification technique on the tread surface. First a new experimental modal parameter estimation method to be applied to point symmetric structures is presented. The method decomposes frequency response functions into the components of individual natural modes based upon Fourier transform algorithm in the circumferential direction of spatial domain at first, and then determines the modal parameters using the components of each natural mode. Second "Discrete Standing Wave Tire Model" is presented. In this method, regarding natural modes as roots of wave equation of the tread surface, we identify the parameters of wave equation. By using the solution of identified wave equation, the tire model that can express meticulous deformations of the tread surface is obtained.

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In spacecraft system acoustic tests, one often sees local pressure increase in the narrow gap between spacecraft primal structure and components facing toward the fairing wall. This acoustical environment load to the components differs from that the components were tested alone and the flight acoustic environment may not be actually simulated in the ground testing. In this paper, in order to clarify the mechanism and evaluate this pressure increase, basic experiment including acoustic testing and vibration modal survey is employed. It is found that the main reason of the phenomenon is dominated by the acoustic cavity on the appropriate boundary condition rather than structure vibration. Boundary element method is used to analysis the phenomenon and comparison of analysis and experiment results are carried out.

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This research presents an optimal design of active suspension with random road surface input simulation. In this work sky hook controll gain and mechanical parameters like active suspension, damper and spring are considered. Besides, the 8-DOF vehicle model is used for calculating the simulation. The criteria which is the function of energy consumption and vehicle vibration is defined. Hence a research on the design parameters of the afore mentioned criteria gives an optimal result on the vehicle vibration and energy consumption.

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Recently, a concept of "universal design" has been attracting much attentions. Although various methods and techniques for universal design have been reported, most of them support design thought process only in an analytic direction with insufficient generality and comprehensibility. The purpose of this research is to establish a systematic methodology for universal design. As a first report of the research, this paper proposes a systematic, general and comprehensive matrix of product hardware/software configuration to cover user diversity. This paper also shows the analysis result of about seventy products based on the matrix for the relationship between their targeted user diversity and product configuration.

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This paper describes the traffic simulation in the urban city by using cellular automata and the stochastic velocity model. The local rule of the cellular automata simulation and the concept of the stochastic velocity model are described firstly. The present simulaion method is applied to the simulatio of the urban city traffic. The simulation results are compared with the simulator evaluation model of Japan Society of Traffic Engineers.

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The object of this study is to develop an indoor nearfloor mover of autonomous character for the handicapped and the old who have difficulty in walking. It is desirable that they can move about in the house without help of their family. The height of the mover sould be lowered for the conversation with the family who sit on the floor. The mover must have a flat carrier in order to set the special chair by which the patient can keep his comfortable and painless posture. Moreover, it needs the function for making a modification on the route even if the correct control is impossible.

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The purpose of our research is to formulate 'the Automated CT-based 3D remote surgical planning system for total hip replacement'. Recent advanced planning systems evaluate quantitatively the fitness and stability of each individual implant (e.g. femoral stem) to provide some objective measure for surgeons on a local machine. However, calculation of those parameters and visualization of the 3D models occupy much throughput of the computer. Nowadays, broadband has become popular and computers can access to remote PC clusters easily. So even on low spec computers, doctors can distribute required processings and receive the results sooner than ever.

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In recent years, in the car industry, improvement in the driving-stability and comfort of car is attempted. And it is known experientially that the influence of a suspension is especially large. However at the present time, a huge experience and sense of a designer is required in suspension designing. In this study, instead of those designing method using designer's experience and sense, we propose a new designing method which a designer can evaluate a suspension design quantitatively in a simple way.

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As recent trend has shown that consumers are buying products that reflect their own personality and characteristic, it implies that in order to fulfill the needs of individual customer, manufacturing system in the future shall be individual oriented. Parallel with the popularization of placing order via the internet, this research develops and analyzes an internet-based consumer oriented product ordering system modeled by colored Petri nets. The system is linked to the manufacturing system where the delivery date and cost of product is precisely calculated based on the machine, man power and material factors. It is hope that the system may lead to an outline of future mechanism of individual consumer oriented manufacturing system.

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This paper proposes a modeling method of stress concentrated members for the first order analysis (FOA). When a complicate solid structure is simplified as an assemblage of simple beam elements applied to element forces such as axial force, shear force, bending moment and twisting moment, the total stiffness equation for FOA of the solid structure is constructed and solved for the given boundary and loading conditions by the usual FEM manner. Then, the total deformation of simplified model is estimated and the element forces are calculated in the element level. The stress concentration of simplified each member with holes, notches and variable cross section is also predicted by the suggested approximate formulation. A U-notched 3D-model is picked up and how the suggested formulas can predict the stress concentration precisely will be shown. These formulas can be used to show the influence of the design parameter changes to the designer and how the load transmission path will change by the design changes.

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Trial-and-error optimal design discussed in this article is an optimization process which is basically performed based on the designer's own intuition and experience. Such an approach does not have any rational or objective background; it is, however, widely used in the practical design process in many engineering fields. In this preliminary study, we conduct an evaluation of this optimal design process. A simple structural design problem is considered and a computer program which supports as well as records the designer's trial-and-error process is developed. The optimality and other properties of the trial-and-error optimal design process is discussed based on the obtained results.

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In this paper, an optimization problem solving system on the Grid and its APIs are proposed. Generally, to solve the optimization problems, high calculation cost due to many iterations of analyzation and several libraries for optimization and analyzation are required. Therefore, the optimization system on the Grid is very efficient. In the proposed system, the GridRPC system is used for exchanging the informations among the optimization and analyzing libraries. The GridRPC system is a Grid middleware and provides useful RPC based programming model. In addition, the APIs for the proposed system are prepared. These APIs make it easy for the end-users to use the services provided by the proposed system and can offer the same services that do not depend on the Grid middleware. Therefore, the proposed system is expected to be the efficient optimization system on the Grid.

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For a resin molding parts of portable electric device, which have a free-form surface, it is difficult to verify the molding shape with accuracy only using a contact me asuring system and a visual inspection. This paper proposes an advantageous rapid verification method using an on-contact measuring/evaluation system. Also this paper presents some applications of the reverse engineering and the simplification technic in drawing.

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The grand design process of piezoelectric actuators crucially determines the product performance, whereas the design support method has not been established. This paper proposes a new design system that supports plan and grand design of piezo-bimorph actuators. The piezoelectric fan design problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem that can be solved using genetic algorithms based experimental evaluation and numerical analysis. This method shows not only quantitative evaluation but also qualitative one based dynamics. Such a framework design, which reduces the number of trial and error process and product design failures, is expected to enable shortened product development lead-times.

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In the present paper, we applied a new optimization method using a stochastic process to the design of the hang glider. As for this problem, not only the hang glider design but also its flight path are optimized at the same time. The method obtains a solution as an expectation (probability average) using stochastic process. The advantages of this method are not to be affected by initial conditions and not to need techniques based on experience. In this optimization problem, the numerical calculation results show that the method has a sufficient performance.

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It is important to evaluate trade-off among product quality, costs, lead time, etc. in the earliest stages of development for total optimization of product development. This paper shows effectiveness to apply multi-objective optimization as typified by multi-objective GA (Genetic Algorithms) to the functional design stage. Not only Pareto-optimal solutions express the trade-off relationships and limit of design, but also design guidelines are issued by inspecting the classified Pareto-optimal solutions according to the relationship with design variables and constraints. In addition, it is also useful to study capability to improve the Pareto-optimal solutions by analyzing the sensibility of shift of Pareto front to the virtual change of design conditions in the earliest stages of development.

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In this paper, we will treat a problem of mixed variable with discrete variables. Which is thought to be a daunting problem in optimization. However, mixed optimization can be seen in many actual designs. In this study, we will use approximation method using GRGAs and RBF. And we will propose a bench mark problem of mixed optimization.

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A method for improving local optimal solutions of nonlinear programming problems by treating equality constraints directly, named "Modal Trimming Method, " has been proposed, and it has turned out that the method has a high possibility of deriving the global optimal solutions by the suboptimal ones for a wide range of problems. It has been shown that this feature is because the renewal of solutions based on the extended Newton-Raphson method creates a chaotic behavior of the solutions, and a strategy for improving the capability of global search has been proposed. In this paper, a strategy for treating inequality constraints directly is proposed, and it turns out that the trap into local optimal solutions located on the boundaries of inequality constraints can be avoided. The modal trimming method with these strategies is applied to a variety of test problems, and its validity and effectiveness are clarified.

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The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method is one of the most powerful methods for solving unconstrained and constrained global optimization problems. Little is, however, known about how the PSO method works or finds a globally optimal solution of a global optimization problem when the method is applied to global optimization problems. This paper deals with the analysis of the dynamics of PSO in order to obtain an understanding about how it searches a globally optimal solution and a strategy about how to tune its parameters. While a generalized reduced model of PSO is proposed in order to analyze the dynamics of PSO, the stability analysis is carried out on the basis of both the eigenvalue analysis and some numerical simulations on a typical global optimization problem.

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The back propagation method for multi-layered neural network models is used for pattern recognition, prediction, etc. in many fields. However, gradient methods which are often used to identify the values of model parameters have the significant problem that they can derive only local optimal solutions. A method for improving local optimal solutions of constrained nonlinear programming problems, named "Modal Trimming Method", has been proposed by the authors. It has turned out that the method has a high possibility of deriving global optimal solutions by suboptimal ones for a wide range of problems. It has been shown that this feature is because the renewal of solutions based on the extended Newton-Raphson method creates a chaotic behavior of the solutions. In this paper, the modal trimming method is adopted to derive global optimal solutions by the back propagation method. This approach is applied to an example problem for pattern recognition, and its validity and effectiveness are clarified.

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Recent years, several multipoint-search-based meta-heuristics such as Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) have been proposed and have been proved to be efficient methods for global optimization problems. In this report, a new multipoint-search method, which is based on the interaction among search points is proposed. Some simulations using typical knapsack problems verify the search performance of the proposed method.

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In this paper, Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are applied to structural optimization problems. These problems are one of the complex and constrained optimization problems. Therefore, to solve the problems, the GAs with strong searching capability and the mechanisms which handle the constraints efficiently must be prepared. So this paper applies penalty method and pulling back method to Distributed Probabilistic Model-Building Genetic Algorithm (DPMBGA). DPMBGA is the extended algorithm of Probabilistic Model-Building GA (PMBGA) and it has high searching capability. DPMBGA with the penalty method and pulling back method are applied to truss structural optimization problems. Through the simulation, the searching capability and efficiency of penalty method and the pulling back method are discussed. From the discussion, it is concluded that the pulling back method can derive good solution even when the problem is difficult. Compared to the penalty method, the number of the individuals that violate the constraints is smaller in the pulling back method.

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The Genetic Algorithm (GA), which is optimum method based schema theorem, is applicable on a wide scale problem. So, various optimum methods derived from the GA are studied. In this study, one of them, that is the Special Feature Extracting GA (SFE-GA), is proposed. The SFE-GA is based on the idea that genes possessing suitable environment extend to all over the mass, and is GA with an operation of stepping up the function. This method is applied to a problem that searches of the maximum value in a simple function, and the validity is checked. The behavior in search is clarified and it is confirmed to extract the effective schema sequentially.

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In a production process design, it is required to define working time and scheduling by the number of a machine and performance but single solution is calculated when existing method is applied. It is necessary to propose some schedules and to assist a designer. In this study, immune algorithm is used and improved to solve jobshop scheduling problem known as a difficult problem in combination optimization problems and genetic algorithm is compared with immune algorithm for this problem. Through some examples, we showed that some optimal solutions and quasi-optimal solution could be found

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This paper proposes the pararel distributed interactive genetic algorithm (PDIGA) which is an interactive genetic algorithm (IGA) based on a parallel distribution model. IGA is an optimization method using a genetic algorithm (GA) where the evaluation of the individuals is performed by a user, not by a computer. By extending IGA to a parallel distribution model, the design solution from other users can be efficiently incorporated in its search, and it is thought that it leads to new way-of-thinking support. We performed comparison between an IGA system and a PDIGA system. The migration individual obtained better evaluation than a mutation individual. Moreover, it turns out PDIGA system can be used as a consensus-building tool.

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In this paper, we study an inverse kinematics problem in which optimum trajectories of walking robot toes are generated under the condition of minimum walking energy. It is important for the walking robot that the motions of legs are determined to achieve the desired body operation. A 4-legged walking robot with rinks and motors at joints of waist and knee is assumed here. Genetic algorithms are used for optimization of several parameters which describe the trajectory function and initial and target points of the toe. Furthermore, we use neural networks to calculate the optimum trajectory for real time generations.

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From the viewpoint of "built in quality" of products, Utilization of Taguchi Method (Robust Design) is important and is effective to reinforce from R & D to production stage process. However under the actual application scene, issues are lying, thus this method can not be well used by all engineers anytime. This paper introduces our activity of Taguchi Method utilization promotion.

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The statistical data show that almost 50% of traffic accidents were due to car-to-car collisions. In the case, the size, weight and stiffness of crash opponent are various. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the safety vehicles for car-to-car accidents by considering all conditions such as the speed, offset rate and crashing angle of the collision. The purpose of this study is to establish a design method that considers several conditions of the car-to-car collision and enables designers to carry out the design of the reinforced members to control the collision pulse and the changes of the absorbed energy.

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This paper presents development of structural reliability design system of printed-circuit assembly in a cellular mobile phone. To realize the reliability design at the early stage of design, an efficient FEM model was proposed, and the fatigue strength database was developed by using 4-point bending test and simulation. The structural reliability design of printed-circuit assembly takes about 30 minutes on entire keys and the estimated life for key pressing operation of trial products was in good agreement with experimental results.

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