Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence and Engineering Design

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has had a strong presence in engineering design for decades, and while theory, methods, and tools for engineering design have advanced significantly during this time, many grand challenges remain. Modern advancements in AI, including new strategies for capturing, storing, and analyzing data, have the potential to revolutionize engineering design processes in a variety of ways. The purpose of this special issue is to consolidate recent research activities that utilize existing or new AI methods to advance engineering design knowledge and capabilities.During the conception of this special issue, we identified three core interfaces between the research domains of engineering design and AI: (1) leveraging AI methods directly in engineering design methods, (2) creating new AI capabilities that are inspired by unique challenges that arise in engineering design, and (3) creating and analyzing design methods that are tailored for the design of engineering systems where the systems themselves utilize AI, such as autonomous vehicles. The diverse body of research articles that now comprise this special issue gravitate toward the first of these themes: advancing engineering design capability through the use of AI. While these articles are an exciting contribution to the design research literature, significant opportunities exist for more fully exploring the remaining two interfaces, ideally through more unified interdisciplinary efforts. During the process of synthesizing this editorial, we recognized a fourth interface between engineering design and AI: specifically, investigating how AI could be used as an increasingly powerful tool for conducting engineering design research, such as AI tools that are used directly in research activities (e.g., experiment planning or gathering information from human designers) and that are not necessarily part of the designed system or the design method.