The papers compiled in this book focus on building smart components to engineering systems currently available. The term smart in this context indicates physical systems that can interact with their environment and adapt to changes in both space and time by their ability to manipulate that environment through self-awareness and perceived models of the world based on both quantitative and qualitative information. Recent technologies such as neural networks, fuzzy logic, evolutionary programming, data mining, complex systems and rough sets form the basis of Smart Engineering System Design.
In 2000, the Department of Engineering Management at the University of Missouri-Rolla, in collaboration with IEEE Neural Network Council, organized the ANNIE 2000 conference to advance the techniques of Smart Engineering System Design. This was the tenth meeting since the foundation of the conference in 1991. The conference, held in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., attracted over 170 papers from approximately 20 countries, which, after being peer reviewed and revised by the author, have been included in this book.