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Spatial Realization

• Goal
  • Tool-to-tool collaboration technique for spatial realization of conceptual designs
• Approach
  • Develop ways to convert tools into autonomous agents
  • Discover rules by which autonomous agents (including humans) can collaborate effectively
• Impact
  • Ability to optimize spatial layouts
  • Improved problem solving through collaboration of agents over computer networks

Asynchronous Teams on Demand

What is an A-Team?
A-Teams are strongly cyclic networks of memories and agents. Memories are repositories of solutions related to the problem being solved. Agents are autonomous entities that modify the contents of memories.

How is an A-Team constructed?
A-Teams are constructed by selecting the appropriate memories and agents from a repository and connecting them together.

Problem Definition

What is Spatial Realization?
Spatial Realization is an instance of Configuration Design. The goal is to locate a set of objects in a housing unit to satisfy various constraints between the objects.
This is a problem instance for packing the components into a seeker assembly for a missile. There are various constraints that the layout must satisfy - for example the connectors must be accessible from the outside, and the amplifiers must be located so that the heat they generate can be safely dissipitated.

A-Teams Toolkit

The A-Teams toolkit provides a mechanism for connecting agents and memories and for observing and controlling the execution of a team.

Intermediate Solutions

Here is a solution for the problem. The connectors are close to the microprocessor and analog to digital convertors, but far from the outside of the housing.

Final Solutions

The is a solution after the task was changed by redefining accessibility to reflect the distance of objects from the housing boundary. The A-Team for the new task was obtained by replacing the accessibility agents in the team. The other agents remained the same and could continue working in the team even while the accessibility agents were replaced.

Tradeoffs

Pareto Surface

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