Modeling Interactions in Multidisciplinary Design: A Game Theoretic Approach

The development, implementation, and application of approaches to modeling the interactions in multidisciplinary design is illustrated. Given that the design of complex systems involves multiple disciplinary design teams and their associated analysis and synthesis tools, the task is to model the real interactions among the designers and their tools in order to predict the resulting design. Our approach to this problem is to abstract the interactions in multidisciplinary design as a sequence of games among a set of players, which are embodied by the design teams and their computer-based tools. The developments are applied to a subsonic passenger aircraft design case study to illustrate the rich insights and results that can be generated by exercising different realistic protocols between disciplinary players in modern design processes.