This research effort is directed toward the development of theoretical foundations and software tools to serve as the basis for supporting engineering design and manufacturing automation. These objectives require a synergistic interaction between theory and practice. A substantial amount of effort over the past few years has been dedicated toward the development of theoretical models by adopting previous work in information theory, computability theory, symbolic logic, and design methodology. This has been complemented by adopting existing techniques in artificial intelligence and extending them to new applications. A common theme in this research activity is found in the transformational model of productive effort, from an initial functional specification to the final product. This perspective has served as a unifying theme in fundamental investigations for both the design and manufacturing components. The research plan over the next five years is to work with industrial collaborators to further refine the preliminary models and theories developed thus far, and to generate software tools robust enough to accommodate the practical rigors of real-world applications. The challenges of the envisioned work imply a high-risk, high-pay-off program for which a Presidential Young Investigator award would represent a major resource for turning the vision into reality.
