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MIDAS (Memory for the Initial Design of Aircraft Subsystems) is a case-based design aid (CBDA) developed in a collaboration between the AI group at Georgia Tech and the Advanced Design Division of Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company. Inspired by ideas initially demonstrated in the Georgia Tech AI group's Archie project, designers at Lockheed were interested in seeing if a corporate memory for useful conceptual design experiences could cost-effectively be constructed for their own use. The result of a short six month prototyping effort was the current MIDAS system, and the beginnings of a general shell for constructing CBDAs, now called Design-MUSE.
MIDAS, like all CBDAs, contains documentation and evaluations of existing designs. The goal is to capture and disseminate lessons learned from design experience, especially when those lessons are not easily incorporated into a field's theoretical framework, and when those lessons bear on the early stages of design. MIDAS starts with schematics of hydraulic systems from several existing aircraft, and supplements those with stories about how those hydraulic systems worked out or what factors influenced the early design decisions. The intent is to capture design data and lessons covering the early design of all major aircraft subsystems so that young Lockheed designers can benefit from the accumulated experience of the firm's senior engineers.
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