Complex engineering system synthesis design optimization framework

Synthesis design optimization environment was built for system integration, process unification, parameter optimization and collaborative design. The high extensible and multi-tiered architecture of this environment was built on the analysis of characteristic of complex engineering system. Four key modules were discussed: project organization and management module guarantees project schedule and quality; process modeling and running module applies design task structure for representing design processes, workflow reference model for running, and provides the ability of task transition across organization; design task unit based on component technology integrates people, data and tool over network, and provides a coherent task model for system design; product data model uses PDM (product data management) as information infrastructure, and provides a single representation of product. The implementation of the environment and running mechanism were presented. The prototype of this environment has been successfully tested by the design and optimization experimentations in fields of pneumatics, structure, control and system design.