The intellectual environment of a CACSD project

A complex and multidisciplinary computer-aided control system design (CACSD) project is the synergetic interaction of basic and modular building blocks tied together in a coherent environment for the achievement of the most practical and lesser-effort design. Based on experience gained in directing an academic computer-aided control system design (CACSD) project-the so-called CASCIDA project at Setif University, Algeria-the author gives a structured description of the set of disciplines in which the project evolved thus building a whole intellectual environment. Some of the facets of this environment are now applied to expert control of robot manipulators at Universite Pierre et Marie Curie Paris-6, Paris, France