Finding routeways in airframe design using genetic algorithms

Routing of wires and piping in airframe design is an arduous process. Current processes attempt to wire bundles of wires individually, resulting in a lengthy iterative process as attempts are made to satisfy the many constraints for each type of wire or bundle. This paper describes a new approach to this problem, in which pre defined routeways are established at an early stage of the design, so as to satisfy the constraints of the wiring and piping to be placed within. The work described here provides for automatic optimization of these routeways using genetic algorithms. Solutions produced this way are compared with those produced by a maze solver, and found to offer better use of the available space. Variations of the detail design of the genetic algorithm used have been prototyped and evaluated.