Some decades have passed by, since the topic of numerical optimisation has rushed into engineering, mainly boosted by the increasing availability of computational power.
Actually, optimal design in electromagnetism has a long history, from Maxwell (1892) on. In other fields of engineering, like structural mechanics, the history of optimal design is even longer, dating back to Lagrange in his Mécanique Analitique (1788). In the latter area the modern development has taken place over the past five decades, anticipating a similar development in electromagnetism and, to some extent, fostering it.
In turn, computational electromagnetism has so advanced, since the advent of digital computers and thanks to the development of numerical methods, that in more recent years it has been possible to integrate the analysis of electromagnetic field with optimisation techniques, so moving from computer-aided design (CAD) to automated optimal design (AOD) of systems and devices. Nowadays, in fact, the association of low-price and high-speed computers with numerical libraries makes it possible to identify solutions to inverse problems of various kind and complexity, so offering scientists and engineers the possibility of implementing AOD.