Artificial intelligence and Expert Systems in Smart Materials: Current Trends and Future Frontiers

Abstract

Modern engineering and technology are increasingly being transformed by smart materials (ones that have intelligent responses and sensing capabilities to external stimulations). Recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and knowledge-based expert systems (KBES) have greatly increased the process of discovering, creating, optimizing, and introducing such materials. This review will be a general overview of AI methodology and expert system in smart materials along with its present trends, enabling technology, and future prospects. The basics of the stimulus-response behavior, such as thermal, mechanical, electrical, magnetic, optical and chemical stimulation are initially addressed to develop scientific foundation of intelligent matter. The presence of AI-based methods (high-throughput screening, machine learning, generative adversarial networks (GANs), and physics-informed neural networks (PINNs)) is then discussed and it is shown that data-driven and physics-informed models become cheaper to experiment with but still achieve better prediction and allow the design of inverse materials. Simultaneously, the role of knowledge-based expert systems in the selection of materials, optimization, and the provision of assistance is examined, especially in the setting of Industry 4.0. Recent technological developments, such as computational materials science, real-time adaptive control, and digital twins are discussed in the light of the applications in smart textiles, energy systems, healthcare, and sustainable infrastructure. Lastly, new issues on data sparsity, multi-scale complexity, manufacturability, ethics and regulation are touched on, as well as a vision into the future of autonomous, self-healing, environmentally friendly smart material systems. This paper highlights the transformative power of AI and expert systems in bringing smart materials in laboratory applications to practical solutions and effects in the world.