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An ontology-based method for knowledge integration in a collaborative design environment

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Abstract

A collaborative design environment can be viewed as a multi-agent system where each design agent has knowledge about specific domains and can solve different problems. Several agents combine to solve a complex problem through knowledge sharing and inter operation. It is essential to construct an integrated knowledge base to improve the efficiency and consistency of complex problem-solving. An ontology-based knowledge integration framework in a collaborative design environment is presented in this paper. Ontology provides standard vocabulary, technical terminology and a domain model for knowledge integration. The representation and construction of ontology are critic problems for knowledge integration. An object-oriented concept graph representation is presented to represent ontology. It has advantages of both object-oriented methodology and Sowa’s conceptual graph. It can be translated into predicate calculus conveniently, and can represent the intension of concepts. In order to improve the efficiency of ontology construction, a semantic-based approach is presented. Firstly, a semantic affinity based clustering algorithm is presented to generate concepts from the term set of multi-agent systems. Then, ontology is constructed based on knowledge.

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Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge the support of NSFC (China) under grant 50475142.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430074, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Ling Ling, Yujin Hu, Xuelin Wang & Chenggang Li

Authors
  1. Ling Ling
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  2. Yujin Hu
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  3. Xuelin Wang
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  4. Chenggang Li
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Correspondence to Ling Ling.

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Ling, L., Hu, Y., Wang, X. et al. An ontology-based method for knowledge integration in a collaborative design environment. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 34, 843–856 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-006-0670-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-006-0670-8

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