Knowledge-Based Reasoning in a Unified Feature Modeling Scheme

Feature-based modeling is an accepted approach to include high-level geometric information in product models as well as to facilitate a parameterized and constraint-based product development process. Moreover, features are suitable as an intermediate layer between a product’s knowledge model and its geometry model for effective and efficient information management. To achieve this, traditional feature technology must be extended to align with the approach of knowledge-based reasoning. In this paper, based on a previously proposed unified feature modeling scheme, feature definitions are extended to support knowledge-based reasoning. In addition, a communication mechanism between the knowledge-based system and the feature model is established. The methods to embed and use knowledge for information consistency control are described.