Multi-Agent design architecture for integrated design systems

Integrated Design Systems (IDS) represent integration of broad range of high fidelity knowledge from expert sources in near real time to synthesize and refine design and product realization. Such a system should result in an order of magnitude reduction in product realization time. The characteristics of IDS are: coordination of asynchronous design activities; conflict management; interoperability among heterogeneous software and hardware environments to accomplish an effective collaborative computational system, and to provide tools to facilitate human designer's participation. Due to the constant evolution of software tools and techniques, IDS should be able to accommodate changes easily. Multi-Agent Design Architecture (MADA), described in this paper, is designed to address the above requirements and provide additional features. This architecture provides seamless integration of product realization activities across heterogeneous machines, computing platforms, programming languages, data and process representations using distributed intelligent agents. An agent in the context of MADA is an autonomous computational entity which is capable of migrating across computing environments asynchronously. These agents posses intelligence in the form of individual goals, beliefs and learning mechanisms, and interact cooperatively to accomplish overall IDS objectives. This paper presents an application of the MADA model to the design of aerospace com. ponents. Specifically, we demonstrate the use of integrated design and analysis tools for creating a High Speed Civil Transport exhaust nozzle.