Seeding, Evolutionary Growth and Reseeding: Constructing, Capturing and Evolving Knowledge in Domain-Oriented Design Environments

We live in a world characterized by evolution—that is, by ongoing processes of development, formation, and growth in both natural and human-created systems. Biology tells us that complex, natural systems are not created all at once but must instead evolve over time. We are becoming increasingly aware that evolutionary processes are ubiquitous and critical for technological innovations as well. This is particularly true for complex software systems because these systems do not necessarily exist in a technological context alone but instead are embedded within dynamic human organizations.The Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D) at the University of Colorado has been involved in research on software design and other design domains for more than a decade. We understand software design as an evolutionary process in which system requirements and functionality are determined through an iterative process of collaboration among multiple stakeholders, rather than being completely specified before system development occurs. Our research focuses on the following claims about software systems embedded within dynamic human organizations: (1) they must evolve because they cannot be completely designed prior to use, (2) they must evolve to some extent at the hands of the users, and (3) they must be designed for evolution.Our theoretical work builds upon our existing knowledge of design processes and focuses on a software process model and architecture specifically for systems that must evolve. Our theories are instantiated and assessed through the development and evolution of domain-oriented design environments (DODEs)—software systems that support design activities within particular domains and that are built specifically to evolve.     

Developing a quantitative intelligent system for implementing concurrent engineering design

This research focuses on the development of a quantitative intelligent system for implementing concurrent engineering design. The paper first discusses the task of concurrent engineering design and the basic requirements for conducting integrated concurrent engineering design. The proposed quantitative intelligent system approach combines qualitative reasoning, based upon design and manufacturing knowledge, and quantitative evaluation and optimization, conducted using design information and manufacturing data generated in the knowledge-based reasoning. The method allows considerations on non-operating principle aspects of a product to be incorporated into the design phase, such as manufacturing, maintenance, service, recycle, etc., with an emphasis on production costs. The proposed method serves as a convenient software tool for gathering information required in the concurrent engineering design process and integrates tasks from different parts of the product development life cycle, particularly function design, manufacturability analysis and production cost estimation. A prototype software system is developed based upon this method using Smalltalk-80. In the prototype system, concurrent engineering design is carried out by: (1) describing and representing design requirements; (2) generating feasible design candidates and evaluating their design functions; (3) representing design geometry; (4) finding the associated production processes and predicting the production costs of each feasible design; and (5) identifying the costeffective design that satisfies given design requirements and requires minimum production costs.     

A QFD-based method to support SMEs in benchmarking co-design tools

Efficient collaborative product design is crucial for extended enterprises willing to develop complex products pursuing a short time to market. However, successful collaborative product design depends on the ability to effectively manage and share engineering knowledge and data throughout the entire product development process. Co-design software platforms aim to facilitate cooperation in distributed teams. In the context of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) the advanced co-design software implementation to support the supply chain is not a trivial task. SMEs have peculiar characteristics such as flexibility, ICT skills and financial resources, which are difficult to be integrated within a structured design network. This paper presents a method to define and evaluate a co-design platform dedicated to SMEs in the mechanical product field. System architecture is defined by applying suitable metrics based on collaborative process characteristics in order to assess functionality performance of the available tools. Benchmarking is based on different levels of collaboration recognized in the typical product development process in SMEs. Correlation between process metrics, software functionalities and specific collaboration requirements is managed by adopting Quality Function Deployment (QFD) techniques. A practical case study allows the robustness of the proposed method to be verified and the main advantages and future developments to be discussed.     

基于Web的产品配置设计系统体系研究

对产品配置设计全过程进行了研究，在分析现有产品配置设计系统的基础上，结合当前客户定制要求与协同制造技术的发展，对基于Web的、使客户能真正参与协同产品配置设计的系统体系进行了初步探索，并提出了实现该体系的技术路线。     

A reference architecture for scientific virtual laboratories

Recent advances in the IT can be applied to properly support certain complex requirements in the scientific and engineering domains. In experimental sciences, for instance, researchers should be assisted with conducting their complex scientific experimentation and supporting their collaboration with other scientists. The main requirements identified in such domains include the management of large data sets, distributed collaboration support, and high-performance issues, among others. The virtual laboratory project initiated at the University of Amsterdam aims at the development of a hardware and software reference architecture, and an open, flexible, and configurable laboratory framework to enable scientists and engineers with working on their experimentation problems, while making optimum use of modern information technology approaches. This paper describes the current stage of design of a reference architecture for this scientific virtual laboratory, and focuses further on the cooperative information management component of this architecture, and exemplifying its application to experimentation domain of biology.     

Collaborative conceptual design: A large software project case study

During software development, the activities of requirements analysis, functional specification, and architectural design all require a team of developers to converge on a common vision of what they are developing. There have been remarkably few studies of conceptual design during real projects. In this paper, we describe a detailed field study of a large industrial software project. We observed the development team's conceptual design activities for three months with follow-up observations and discussions over the following eight months. In this paper, we emphasize the organization of the project and how patterns of collaboration affected the team's convergence on a common vision. Three observations stand out: First, convergence on a common vision was not only painfully slow but was punctuated by several reorientations of direction; second, the design process seemed to be inherently forgetful, involving repeated resurfacing of previously discussed issues; finally, a conflict of values persisted between team members responsible for system development and those responsible for overseeing the development process. These findings have clear implications for collaborative support tools and process interventions.     

多人实时协同设计在虚拟家装系统中的研究与实现

本文主要介绍了基于计算机支持下的协同技术中的多人实时协同的算法和理论,以及多人协同模块在虚拟家装系统中的具体实现,令分布在不同地域的普通用户在同一时间浏览、设计同一个户型的任意部分,提高了虚拟家装系统的设计效率,增强了用户对软件的应用体验,带来了巨大的经济效益。     

Automated generation of multiphysics simulation models to support multidisciplinary design optimization

To ensure a consistent design representation for serving multidisciplinary analysis, this research study proposes an intelligent modeling system to automatically generate multiphysics simulation models to support multidisciplinary design optimization processes by using a knowledge based engineering approach. A key element of this system is a multiphysics information model (MIM), which integrates the design and simulation knowledge from multiple engineering domains. The intelligent modeling system defines classes with attributes to represent various aspects of physical entities. Moreover, it uses functions to capture the non-physical information, such as control architecture, simulation test maneuvers and simulation procedures. The challenge of system coupling and the interactions among the disciplines are taken into account during the process of knowledge acquisition. Depending on the domain requirements, the intelligent modeling system extracts the required knowledge from the MIM and uses this first to instantiate submodels and second to construct the multiphysics simulation model by combining all submodels. The objective of this research is to reduce the time and effort for modeling complex systems and to provide a consistent and concurrent design environment to support multidisciplinary design optimization. The development of an unstable and unmanned aerial vehicle, a multirotor UAV, is selected as test case. The intelligent modeling system is demonstrated by modeling thirty-thousand multirotor UAV designs with different topologies and by ensuring the automatic development of a consistent control system dedicated for each individual design. Moreover, the resulting multiphysics simulation model of the multirotor UAV is validated by comparing with the flight data of an actual quadrotor UAV. The results show that the multiphysics simulation model matches test data well and indicate that high fidelity models can be generated with the automatic model generation process.     

On the architecture of a human-centered CAD agent system

With an increasing role of computers in the design process, a strong foundation of the basic principles for building CAD systems is extremely necessary. This work describes the architecture of a CAD system from the perspective of the capabilities required to build a human centered CAD system. These capabilities have been reported as task-sharing, communication, transparency, design rationale and cognition. Existing systems for engineering design have been analyzed from the perspective of these capabilities and an agent-based system previously reported in literature has been extended to a new architecture to support three of the aforementioned capabilities. The proposed architecture is an amalgamation of multi-agent systems, the ACT-R cognitive architecture and fuzzy rule based Petri nets. The salient advantage of this architecture is that it focuses on the capabilities of design rationale, transparency and cognition together—something which has been missing from all the current works in literature and is unique to the domain of application of the software system, which in this case is engineering design. The other capabilities namely task sharing and communication can be incorporated from lessons learnt from human–computer interaction research. The effectiveness of the proposed architecture is demonstrated by a hypothetical design case along with its implementation.     

Cloud-based design and manufacturing: A new paradigm in digital manufacturing and design innovation

Cloud-based design manufacturing (CBDM) refers to a service-oriented networked product development model in which service consumers are enabled to configure, select, and utilize customized product realization resources and services ranging from computer-aided engineering software to reconfigurable manufacturing systems. An ongoing debate on CBDM in the research community revolves around several aspects such as definitions, key characteristics, computing architectures, communication and collaboration processes, crowdsourcing processes, information and communication infrastructure, programming models, data storage, and new business models pertaining to CBDM. One question, in particular, has often been raised: is cloud-based design and manufacturing actually a new paradigm, or is it just “old wine in new bottles”? To answer this question, we discuss and compare the existing definitions for CBDM, identify the essential characteristics of CBDM, define a systematic requirements checklist that an idealized CBDM system should satisfy, and compare CBDM to other relevant but more traditional collaborative design and distributed manufacturing systems such as web- and agent-based design and manufacturing systems. To justify the conclusion that CBDM can be considered as a new paradigm that is anticipated to drive digital manufacturing and design innovation, we present the development of a smart delivery drone as an idealized CBDM example scenario and propose a corresponding CBDM system architecture that incorporates CBDM-based design processes, integrated manufacturing services, information and supply chain management in a holistic sense.     

A distributed and interactive system to integrated design and simulation for collaborative product development

The goal of applying collaborative product development in industry has raised the need to develop software tools supporting system integration and group collaboration. Current methods and tools mainly focus on the collaborative creation of design components and assemblies. However, few of them support the collaborative work in developing simulation models so that proposed design concepts and solutions can be evaluated by integrating expertise from several disciplines. The purpose of this research is to develop a distributed and interactive system on which designers and experts can work together to create, integrate and run simulations for engineering design. To develop such a system, a number of issues, e.g. effectiveness and efficiency of modeling work, the re-use of models, interaction and cooperation, accuracy of simulation, collaborative operation on models, etc., need to be addressed. This paper describes an open architecture to developing simulations for engineering design in a distributed and collaborative environment, identifies a set of key issues raised in this architecture, and presents the techniques employed in our solution.     

An intelligent assistant for requirements validation

The process of determining user requirements for software systems is often plagued with uncertainty, ambiguity, and inconsistency. Rapid prototyping offers an iterative approach to requirements engineering that can be used to alleviate some of the problems with communication and understanding. Since the systems development process is characterized by changing requirements and assumptions, involving multiple stakeholders with often differing viewpoints, it is beneficial to capture the justifications for the decisions in the development process in a structured manner. Thisdesign rationale captured during requirements engineering can be used in conjunction with the rapid prototyping process to support various stakeholders involved in systems development. CAPS (the Computer Aided Prototyping System) has been built to help software engineers rapidly construct prototypes of proposed software systems. REMAP (Representation and MAintenance of Process knowledge) provides a conceptual model and mechanisms to represent and reason with (design) rationale knowledge. In this paper, we describe how in the context of evolving requirements, the CAPS system augmented with REMAP helps firm up software requirements through iterative negotiations via examination of executable prototypes and reasoning with design rationale knowledge.     

基于MBSE的PHM开发平台设计

故障预测与健康管理(PHM)开发平台具有结构功能复杂的特点,传统的设计方法难以保证其结构合理性与功能可靠性。针对传统的基于文本的系统设计中存在的需求追溯性弱、问题描述模糊的问题,提出了应用基广模型的系统工程(MBSE)方法论指导平台设计过程,使用模型驱动的OOSEM建模方法对PHM开发平台进行模型搭建。通过利益相关者需求导出系统需求与系统功能,在对系统内部结构进行逻辑分析后定义了平台系统架构,实现了系统架构综合,搭建了完备的PHM开发平台MBSE模型。基于MBSE的设计过程使该模型具有结构清晰、集成性高、追溯性强的特点,模型化的设计方法保证了其通用性与可重用性。该模型的建立为PHM开发平台搭建提供了设计流程与解决方案。     

Synthesis of probabilistic models for quality-of-service software engineering

An increasingly used method for the engineering of software systems with strict quality-of-service (QoS) requirements involves the synthesis and verification of probabilistic models for many alternative architectures and instantiations of system parameters. Using manual trial-and-error or simple heuristics for this task often produces suboptimal models, while the exhaustive synthesis of all possible models is typically intractable. The EvoChecker search-based software engineering approach presented in our paper addresses these limitations by employing evolutionary algorithms to automate the model synthesis process and to significantly improve its outcome. EvoChecker can be used to synthesise the Pareto-optimal set of probabilistic models associated with the QoS requirements of a system under design, and to support the selection of a suitable system architecture and configuration. EvoChecker can also be used at runtime, to drive the efficient reconfiguration of a self-adaptive software system. We evaluate EvoChecker on several variants of three systems from different application domains, and show its effectiveness and applicability.     

网络化产品协同设计的理论与实践

网络化产品协同设计是实施先进制造的重要支撑技术,该文在分析其研究现状和特点的基础上,提出了基于中介代理的联邦式协同机制和基于约束松弛的协同递归式设计模式,为分布式协同设计的有效运作和基于知识的协同求解提供了一种理论依据。设计并开发了相应的网络化协同设计支持系统——CoDesignSpace,给出了系统的体系结构和实施方法。     

Post-design analysis for building and refining AI planning systems

The growth of industrial applications of artificial intelligence has raised the need for design tools to aid in the conception and implementation of such complex systems. The design of automated planning systems faces several engineering challenges including the proper modeling of the domain knowledge: the creation of a model that represents the problem to be solved, the world that surrounds the system, and the ways the system can interact with and change the world in order to solve the problem. Knowledge modeling in AI planning is a hard task that involves acquiring the system requirements and making design decisions that can determine the behavior and performance of the resulting system. In this paper we investigate how knowledge acquired during a post-design phase of modeling can be used to improve the prospective model. A post-design framework is introduced which combines a knowledge engineering tool and a virtual prototyping environment for the analysis and simulation of plans. This framework demonstrates that post-design analysis supports the discovery of missing requirements and can guide the model refinement cycle. We present three case studies using benchmark domains and eight state-of-the-art planners. Our results demonstrate that significant improvements in plan quality and an increase in planning speed of up to three orders of magnitude can be achieved through a careful post-design process. We argue that such a process is critical for the deployment of AI planning technology in real-world engineering applications.     

基于工作流驱动的航天产品分布式协同设计环境

在分析目前航天产品研制面临形势和存在问题的基础上,引入了构建分布式协同设计环境的解决途径,同时针对产品协同设计过程中知识、任务、对象、人员和流程的统一描述问题,提出了协同设计环境中定义和运行的唯一数据源——任务统一模型(Task Unified Model,简称为TUM)的概念,并对TUM定义、组织、视图转换及运行机制进行了详细论述。然后基于Eclipse RCP和Web Portal技术构建了分布式协同设计环境APEngine,实现了面向产品设计全过程的 TUM 建模、实例化和运行过程。最后通过某航天历史型号设计的工程实际应用,证明了本文研究成果具有较强的工程应用价值。     

基于Arcadia方法的民机信息系统架构设计

传统的基于文档的系统工程是目前民机研制的主要研制方法,存在需求获取不清晰、不同层级的需求与设计不一致、难以追溯以及设计方案更改难度大等问题。结合Arcadia方法和Capella建模工具,提出基于Arcadia的民机机载系统基于模型的系统工程研究方法。通过集成运行、系统、逻辑和物理的视景,构建了特定场景下的机载系统模型。研究表明,基于Arcadia的民机机载系统能够有效避免传统的基于文档式需求的风险和问题,保证了系统架构与需求分析的紧密融合。     

基于Arcadia方法的民机信息系统架构设计

传统的基于文档的系统工程是目前民机研制的主要研制方法,存在需求获取不清晰、不同层级的需求与设计不一致、难以追溯以及设计方案更改难度大等问题。结合Arcadia方法和Capella建模工具,提出基于Arcadia的民机机载系统基于模型的系统工程研究方法。通过集成运行、系统、逻辑和物理的视景,构建了特定场景下的机载系统模型。研究表明,基于Arcadia的民机机载系统能够有效避免传统的基于文档式需求的风险和问题,保证了系统架构与需求分析的紧密融合。