A Stochastic Approach to Designing Affordable, Environmentally Acceptable Systems

The objective of this paper is to give an overview of current research thrusts focused on meeting the challenges associated with designing complex systems. Such systems must be capable of simultaneously meeting future needs for affordable, environmentally acceptable systems. These requirements for increased environmental compatibility, increased performance, and decreased cost are all fundamentally contradictory, and there is consequently a need for new design philosophies and methods capable of synthesizing acceptable solutions from a landscape of innumerable possibilities. In 1997, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology began responding to this need by exploring new methods for systems design under a base of funding provided by the NSF, ONR, and others. Many of these initiatives have since shown outstanding promise as stepping stones in the path to development of comprehensive methods to design affordable, environmentally acceptable systems. This paper describes five of these research thrusts in detail and illustrates opportunities for transition of these methods into industrial practice and educational curricula.