Enabling Advanced Design Methods in an Internet-Capable Framework

The enabling of advanced design methods in an internet-capable framework will be discussed in this paper. The resulting framework represents the next generation of design and analysis capability in which engineering decision-making can be done by geographically distributed team members. A new internet technology called the lean-server approach is introduced as a mechanism for granting Web browser access to frameworks and domain analyses. This approach has the underpinnings required to support these next generation frameworks - collaboratories. A historical perspective of design frameworks is discussed to provide an understanding of the design functionality that is expected from framework implementations to insure design technology advancement. Two research areas were identified as being important to the development of collaboratories: design portals and collaborative methods. An internet-enabled design framework called IMAGE is highlighted and demonstrated using a probabilistic design example. The prototyped methods have found their way into a Conceptual Aerospace Systems Design and Analysis Toolkit used by the Air Force Research Laboratory.