A knowledge-based system for multi-disciplinary conceptual design synthesis

Abstract

Exploring wide multi-disciplinary solution spaces to create conceptual design solutions is a difficult task for human designers due to lack of sufficient multi-disciplinary knowledge. A viable approach would be to develop a computer-aided system to synthesize the wide variety of knowledge for a given design task. However, the existing design synthesis systems are mainly domain-specific, focusing on conceptual design synthesis in a single or few limited disciplines. Therefore, this article introduces the development of a knowledge-based system for multi-disciplinary conceptual design synthesis, including the establishment of a knowledge base for organizing multi-disciplinary principle solutions and a design synthesis algorithm. The implementation of a prototype software is also reported, with the conceptual design of a solar fountain as a demonstrative case. The results of the case study show that the system can automatically and conveniently generate multi-disciplinary conceptual solutions.

A multi-agent-based approach for conceptual design synthesis of multi-disciplinary systems

“…Therefore, our research has been devoted to developing an automated approach for assisting designers in achieving multi-disciplinary conceptual design synthesis. Based on the functional knowledge representation approach and the ACD synthesis approach developed before Xie 2010, 2012;Liu, Chen, and Xie 2012), this paper has developed a multi-agent-based framework for multi-disciplinary conceptual design synthesis, where multiple kinds of designing agents have been identified and the collaborative mechanisms among such designing agents are also elaborated. Compared with our conceptual design synthesis approach developed before, this multi-agent-based approach has three salient features.…”

“…Therefore, there are still no other suitable approaches for achieving multi-disciplinary conceptual design, except the approach we have recently developed Xie 2010, 2012;Liu, Chen, and Xie 2012). To address the inefficiency issue mentioned before, this paper will therefore develop a multi-agent-based approach for achieving multidisciplinary conceptual design synthesis.…”

“…the output flow name, the constraints on the output flow and the attributes-association rules) to act on the environmental flow, with a result of some output flows. For details of the action process, interested readers can find it in our recent papers Xie 2010, 2012;Liu, Chen, and Xie 2012). Such output flows will then be released into IFSA's environment as new input flows for further conceptual design synthesis.…”

“…Prior to analysing the inefficiency issue mentioned before, we should briefly introduce our multi-disciplinary design synthesis approach Xie 2010, 2012;Liu, Chen, and Xie 2012), which will also serve as a computational foundation for our multi-agent-based conceptual design framework. To facilitate explanation, the agent concept is employed here to elaborate our approach.…”

“…Here, a basic premise is that known PSs in various disciplines can be abstracted from existing systems as building blocks for future design synthesis. Based on this idea, we have developed an energy flow-based synthesis approach for achieving the conceptual design of multi-disciplinary systems, and have produced some successful applications Xie 2010, 2012;Liu, Chen, and Xie 2012). This approach differs from existing domain-specific conceptual design synthesis approaches (e.g.…”