Research On Co-operative Design Technologies Applied In Aircraft Design

At present, conflict in aircraft design is dug out by assembly of physical or digital mockups, itsresolution approach is seek in coordinate conference, then design is modified. While design of aircraftinvolve many departments and disciplines, coordination tends to be heavy, which lead to the greatexpend of human resource, capital investigation and time depletion. Newly developed cooperativedesign technologies supported with computer are efficient methods for the design conflict, whichlocate, avoid and eliminate the problem efficiently.Relative design information emerges in the same space with cooperative design technologies,demonstrates the theory and process of conflict, and produces intuitive awareness in designer.Common cooperative design technologies now run outside the routine design environment. Parts andcomponents added to the coordinate space have no context. In aircraft design field, those do't changethe pattern of "design solo-mockup assembly-coordinate-design solo", which can't give full play tocooperatives design.To produce the excellent of the cooperative design to the best, change the traditional cooperationpattern, technologies for cooperating while design were proposed in this paper:1) An archietecture of cooperative design platform seamlessly integrated to CAD system foraircraft cooperative design was proposed. Information of related part/component was presented inday-to-day design environment, with instant updating. And conflict was discovered and avoidedmainly in the period of day-to-day design. Beyod the platform, new pattern of cooperation might beadopted, merging cooperation into design. By bringing forward much design tasks, changing thedesign cycle of "design first, then cooperation", workload was reduced and design effeciecy wereimproved.2) A cooperative awareness model was built aiming at requirement of aircraft design. Engineeringcontext such as product structure and design stage was attached to common parts/componentss and actas index of design operation and related information. Information of variety awareness tense waspresented to designers, according to depth of awareness demand. So that, operation chain forcooperation was shorten, which lead to the convenience reaching cooperation information.3) A cooperative design platform was built. The platform combined blackboard and multi-agencyframework. In the framework, autonomous cooperative design environments run separately, excludingthe disturbance from the observation or design operations of related parts and components. Platformcontrol the whole running of design strictly, deciding information flow and lauching timing of design task. So that fluency of design process was insured, without hurting stringency of aircraft. While thesystem keeps reliable and efficient.4) Grain-fined design process control technology was developed. A grain-fined design processmodeling method was put forward. The model was built by shaping and analyz of cooperationconnection net, whihch was shaped by connecting cooperation patterns in the documentation into aP/T net. The method tends to be more convenient and objective. A localized numerical maturityevaluation method was introduced to adjust developing pace of design procedure, judging effortshoulde be input under current circumstances. With the technology of modifying transmissiondirection of task while design procedure was ongoing, fine process control was supplemented byflexibility. And with the ablility of tracing grain-fined design operation, dynamic fine dependenciesbetween design objects were tracked and might be rollback. With these technologies overcomingchallenges caused by new cooperation pattern, strong apllicablility emphasyzed the platform.A prototype of full design cycle aircraft cooperative design system (CACDS) was developed, whichrealized and verified the formal technology. A cooperative design sample about a landing gear cabinshowed its highly convenience and integration.