| The increased functionality and miniaturization of today's consumer products are challenging the design process of such products. Although computer aided design (CAD) tools have succeeded in assisting the design tasks within each individual engineering discipline, the entire product design process is still very time-consuming and error prone due to the lack of collaboration among different design disciplines.; In this thesis, generic integration methodologies for developing Multidisciplinary Collaborative Design Environments (MCDEs) have been developed. We first describe a theoretical foundation based on the theory of Ontology for modelling a general MCDE. Based on these ontological principles, a multi-model approach for modelling design and system information is developed. At the framework level, we propose an extensible Federated CAD system architecture and outline the system components and development approaches for building such an MCDE. Mechanisms for maintaining consistencies of coupling design constraints in different design domains have also been developed.; These general methodologies and integration approaches have been implemented specifically in DUCADE, a prototyping design environment for concurrent design of consumer electronic products. DUCADE employs the new concept of Distributed Relevant Data Exchange. With this new approach, two separate domain databases are maintained, and only the data that is deemed relevant to the shared design experience is exchanged dynamically for efficiency.; One specific application tested on DUCADE was the design of a multimedia, wireless, portable computer terminal called Infopad. Infopad consists of a customized PCB, designed on Racal/Visula ECAD package, with more than 200 electronic components, and a casing designed on MSC/ARIES/ACIS mechanical CAD package. DUCADE has been used to coordinate these individual domains. The outcome has been an ergonomically compact, successful network-computer. A completed case study on the design and fabrication of Infopad is presented.; At the end of this thesis we describe emerging state-of-the-art technologies, such as Object technology and CORBA, for their potential use in developing future network-centric distributed CAD/CAM environments. |
