Multi-agent based architecture supporting collaborative product lightweight design

Abstract

Increasingly notable environmental problems facilitate more and more considerable emphasis all over the world on them that will somewhat effectively be reduced by less utilization of raw materials. Aiming at diminishing using materials and hence resulting in delicate environment, product lightweight design, indirectly promoting economic and social interest, is developed and refined with multi-agent support in this paper. Not only involving in performance parameter designing, such lightweight design also consider environmental influence, manufacturability and maintainability in the product life cycle, therefore being a collaborative design process with multi-objective optimization and iterative repetition. Firstly, multi-agent based architecture supporting collaborative product lightweight design is put forward, including detailed description of structural composition. Secondly, the core agent-CAX Agent-is introduced thoroughly. Finally, self-adjusting arm shell, as a case study, is redesigned and implemented with such collaborative architecture to validate the operation process of lightweight design. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.