According to Marcelo Kobayashi, “We are working towards a shift in engineering paradigm; to the design of complex engineering systems that naturally evolve according to biological metaphors.” Dr. Kobayashi is referring to the work he and his team are conducting while designing wings for Uninhabited Micro-Vehicles. In this work, a novel evolutionary design is used to create complex, dendritic structures that are generated by a graph-generating grammar (GGG) in conjunction with a genetic algorithm (GA). Rather than postulating a standard design and then optimizing it by conventional means, the coupled GGG & GA actually builds the optimal design in much the same way that nature evolves complexity in leaves, wings and circulatory systems. As in natural systems, each design targets an optimal level of complexity. At this level, performance is robust with respect randomness, or faults, as long as the complexity level is right. Look for Dr. Kobayashi's paper on this topic in a soon-to-be-released edition of the International Journal of Heat & Mass Transfer. One of the co-authors of the paper, Hugo Pedro, performed this type of modeling work on an Engagement Grant through UH/MHPCC. He will continue his work this year. Watch for more on Hiep's work!
Dr. Kobayashi came to UH Manoa's Department of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Lisbon, Portugal, in 2003, after obtaining his second Ph.D. in Mathematics. His first Ph.D., also from the University of Lisbon, is in Mechanical Engineering. This semester Dr. Kobayashi is teaching Computational Fluid Dynamics and Thermal Fluid Design. He is currently advising two graduate students and one undergraduate student. His other research interests include application of the Polynomial Chaos Theory to Tsunami Modeling, and non-linear dynamical systems.
To find out more about Dr. Kobayashi, go to his web page: http://www.me.hawaii.edu/faculty/kobayashi%20.htm
Dr. Kobayashi at work with his wing design in the background.
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| Recent designs that Dr. Kobayashi obtained with the evolutionary design: The one of the left regards the insect wing, and the other relates to a collaboration that he's starting with an Italian group. | |
