The Design and Realization of Automotive Steering Gear Collaborative Design System Based on Multi-Agent

Distributed collaborative design technology which supports teamwork is an advanced research of CAD/CAM development. Efficient distributed collaborative design environment is the urgent demand of engineering. Based on analyzing the characteristics of automotive steering gear collaborative design, the merits and demerits of the framework of collaborative design environment, a framework based on multi-agent combined with browse/server model is presented. Multi-agent collaborative work method is analyzed on the basis of colored and synchronized Petri net. An automotive steering gear collaborative design environment prototype system based on client/server architecture has been developed by means of database technology, multi-agent technology, web technology and development tools, such as VC++ 6.0, C++ Builder 5.0 and MSSQL Server 2000. The system has been tested by taking cycling ball steering gear as engineering case.