The architecture and key technology of an agent-based virtual prototyping

Recently virtual prototyping research has been a hot R&D topic, especially the research on collaborative product development facing multi-field and complex system. This paper proposed an initial agent-based virtual prototyping implementation solution. Firstly, the paper discussed the architecture of agent-based virtual prototyping. It gave a unified form for mechanical, electronic, software and control systems, which are involved in virtual prototyping. Secondly the paper introduced the inner architecture of agent. Thirdly in the paper we presented an example in manufacture field to explain the workflow base in agent mentioned above and how to manage the information in the virtual prototyping development process.