Agent co-ordination aided distributed computational engineering design

Co-ordination is a key research area in engineering design and distributed artificial intelligence, as well as a number of other disciplines. This paper highlights the need for co-ordination within distributed computational design environments. The key characteristics of co-ordination identified are coherence, communication, task management, resource management, schedule management, and real-time support. These key characteristics are integrated within a methodology, which is realised in a multi-agent system aimed at co-ordinating distributed computational design. Co-ordination in real-time is responsive and adaptive to changes in the distributed environment, such that the computational design analysis can be performed in an efficient manner. The agent-based co-ordination system has been applied to two case studies. Firstly, to a theoretical research-based case study related to an aspect of structural analysis involved in conceptual aircraft wing design. Secondly, the system is applied to a practical industrial-based case study involving turbine blade design. In both case studies the multi-agent system enables the respective computational design analysis to be conducted in a coherent and organised fashion making more efficient use of time and resources.