Utilization of Application Model Management Techniquesin Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
In system design, it is not always possible that all decision makers can cooperate fully and thus avoid conflict. They each control a specified subset of design variables and seek to minimize their own cost functions subject to their individual constraints. However, a system management team makes every effort to coordinate multiple disciplines and overcome such noncooperative environment. Although full cooperation is difficult to achieve, noncooperation also should be avoided as possible. Our approach is to predict the results of their cooperation and generate approximate Pareto set for their multiple objectives. The Pareto set can be obtained according to the degree of one's conceding coupling variables in the other's favor. We employ approximation concept for modelling this coordination and the mutiobjective genetic algorithm for exploring the coupling variable space for obtaining an approximate Pareto set. The approximation management concept is also used for improving the accuracy of the Pareto set. The exploration for the coupling variable space is more efficient because of its smaller dimension than the design variable space. Also, our approach doesn't force the disciplines to change their own way of running analysis and synthesis tools. Since the decision making process is not sequential, the required time can be reduced comparing to the existing multidisciplinary design optimization. This approach is applied to some mathematical examples and structural optimization problems.