Dependency based collaborative design

Abstract

The ability to provide support to a group of designers, analysts and other users who are collaborating on an evolving design requires the dual capabilities of managing options for an individual designer while at the same time managing the dependencies between different sets of designer's options. For example, if designer A is creating a design for a helicopters hydraulics system and this is dependent on electrical power (EP) from a sub-system from designer B then how can the workflows, decisions and options of the two designers be managed so that each can understand the implications of their own design decisions and more importantly the implications and design decisions they force on others? The proposed CAPS system employs two dependency reasoning engines one handles quantitative values and other qualitative values. The quantitative engine identifies that a motor with an output of 3000rpm allows a generator to output 100V whereas the qualitative engine could rule out several motors options if the overall design states that the weight of a helicopters transmission needs to be comparable to that of the engine or the positioning of a sensor makes it susceptible to an EM process that could affect its function. A mapping capability is provided allowing analysis to be passed between the two engines. The proposed CAPS architecture has been evaluated against a large collaborative design task involving the design of the electrical, hydraulic, structural and mechanical aspects of a helicopter.