Multi-agent Simulation Model And Evolution Process Study Of Mass Collaborative Design

Mass collaborative design (MCD) is an emerging product design mode in the environment of Internet based collaboration. In this mode, masses of designers with diversified ability structures autonomously participate in collaborative product design, and share the idea, information, technology and outcome of product, by open web community platform. Aiming at the evolution characteristics of product, designer and community in MCD process, research is carried out to study evolution process of MCD by means of multi-agent modeling and simulation from perspectives of agent’s behaviors in this paper, which considers design agent’s special role in MCD process. The paper’s contents are mainly as follows.Firstly, the principle of MCD process is proposed in combination with evolutionary characteristics of product, designer and community. The principle is described that the community member performs activities autonomously, the self-organized behaviors of members are the driving force to promote product evolution and community evolution, the evolution of product and community reacts on members’self-organized behaviors at the same time, and that MCD process is represented in the form of interactions among product, designer and community. Based on the principle, the influence factors of MCD process are extracted from perspectives of product, designer and community.Secondly, based on CAS (Complex Adaptive System) theory and MAS (Multi-agent System) principle, the modeling approach of MCD process oriented to design agent is proposed in combination with characteristics of MCD process. In this way, the multi-agent simulation model of MCD process is built, containing environment model and design agent model. In the simulation model, MCD process is described that design agents constrained by community rules continuously update the status of tasks before they are completed. The simulation model represents the dynamic evolution characteristics of product, design agent and community, as well as design agent’s initiative, autonomy and collaboration during MCD process. In design agent model, the frame of agent behavior protocols is proposed to describe their self-organized behaviors in MCD process. In addition, typical behaviors such as task selection, collaboration, etc. are described quantitatively. Thirdly, evaluation indicator system of MCD process is built from perspectives of product, design agent and community to evaluate the whole evolution process quantitatively. Based on the evaluation system and multi-agent simulation model of MCD process, the mass collaborative design process simulation system (MCDPSS) is developed with Visual C++, SQL Server and Form++. The simulation system contains three functions like graphical modeling, simulation run and simulation analysis. MCDPSS can simulate information updating and interactions of task, design agent and community of MCD process. Besides, simulation analysis of influence factors and evolution process is also realized.At last, simulation study on MCD process is carried out. In this paper, the evolution processes of product, design agent and community are simulated and analyzed respectively; the influence of community scale on MCD process is analyzed by simulation; comparative simulation analysis on agent behaviors such as task selection and collaboration are carried out. The results show that it is an effective approach to study evolution process, influence factors and agent behaviors of MCD process by multi-agent modeling and simulation.