A computer-aided control engineering environment for multi-disciplinary expert-aided analysis and design (EAD)

The MEAD (multidisciplinary expert-aided analysis and design) project involves integrating computer-aided control engineering (CACE) packages under a supervisor that coordinates the use of these packages with a database manager, an expert system, and an advanced user interface. The supervisor is the shell or package integrator for underlying CACE packages and coordinates all activity within the MEAD environment. The database manager keeps track of system models that evolve over time and relates each analysis or design result to the right model instance. The expert system provides expert aiding for clear cut but complicated procedures that would otherwise involve unnecessary low-level detail. The user interface facilitates access to the CACE package capabilities by users with widely different levels of familiarity with the environment and simplifies the use of the expert system and database manager. These goals are achieved by permitting the user to work in several modalities: a menu/forms-style user interface for basic CACE activity; use of MEAD commands when this mode expedites CACE work compared with the more user-friendly menu/forms mode; use of the core packages´ native commands when the exact desired functionality is not conveniently available via MEAD commands; or use of the MEAD macro facility