Dominic: A Domain-Independent Program for Mechanical Engineering Design

Abstract We describe an Artificial Intelligence (AI) program for mechanical engineering design. The program, called Dominic, characterizes design as best-first search through a space of possible designs. Dominic is a general architecture for a class of mechanical engineering design problems; within its redesign framework, in which a design is iteratively modified and improved, one can design a variety of mechanical devices. Dominic's performance on two design problems is evaluated, and a battery of experiments with Dominic is discussed.