Human-Assisted

"Automated antenna synthesis via evolutionary design has recently garnered much attention in the research literature. Evolutionary algorithms show promise because, among search algorithms, they are able to effectively search large, unknown design spaces. Based on encouraging previous results in automated antenna design using evolutionary search, we wanted to see whether such techniques could improve upon Mars Odyssey antenna design. Specifically, a coevolutionary genetic algorithm is applied to optimize the gain and size of the quadrifilar helical antenna. ... The optimization was performed in-situ – in the presence of a neighboring spacecraft structure. On the spacecraft, a large aluminum fuel tank is adjacent to the antenna. Since this fuel tank can dramatically affect the antenna’s performance, we leave it to the evolutionary process to see if it can exploit the fuel tank’s properties advantageously. Optimizing in the presence of surrounding structures would be quite difficul

The following is an excerpt of Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. pp. 114-19. Oxford University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-19-591919-9. It forms part of my research and I include it in this article under the doctrine of fair use [copyright.gov]. Here Alexander contrasts the inner-city urban development patterns of Chicago and New York with those found in San Francisco, London, Glasgow, Barcelona or Old San Juan in terms of building height and volume. It also provides support for concrete criteria, or a set of constraints, for determining the fitness of certain building types based on their volumes and heights within the context of observed human behavior. Constraints of this type are invaluable for modeling a sound, automated, generative grammar in the context of building design. ''  21 - Four-Story Limit Within an urban area, the density of building fluctuates. It will, in general, be rather higher toward the center and lower toward t

Alexander, Christopher. Notes on the Synthesis of Form; Harvard, 1964. ISBN: 0-674-62751-2 (paperback) Christopher Alexander is professor emeritus at the University of California in Berkley, construction developer and licensed architect. He was born in Vienna, Austria in 1936. He has designed and built in California, Japan and Mexico, notwithstanding, his fame is due mainly to his theoretic contributions to this discipline. He produced and validated, in collaboration with Sarah Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein, an architectural system: a language of patterns designed to permit any human being -and possibly another sufficiently complex machine, where complexity counts- to design and build pretty well in any scale. He began his project with the idea that users know more about the building they need than what any architect could understand. Alexander includes in the prologue of the second edition of his Notes on the Synthesis of Form a quote from the French philosopher of science, mat