A Semantic Grid Service Architecture for Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Multidisciplinary Design

Although the current computer-aided design (CAD) and computer network technologies have laid the foundation for the emerging fields of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) in multidisciplinary design, the heterogeneity of multidisciplinary design knowledge representation is still a major obstacle to sharing and exchanging multidisciplinary design knowledge for multidisciplinary collaborative design. To overcome this, an ontology-based service-oriented modeling approach is presented in this paper for distributed management of multidisciplinary design knowledge in the Semantic Grid, enabling to add semantics to grid services to endow them with semantic capabilities needed for their flexible deployment and reuse in multidisciplinary collaborative design. A service-oriented multi-agent system architecture is laid out in the Semantic Grid to address, in an open, loosely coupled and integrated manner, the life cycle of multidisciplinary collaborative design activities involved in publishing, discovering and reusing various grid services. Key-Words: CSCW; Collaborative design; Knowledge management; Multidisciplinary design; Ontology; Semantic Grid; Service-oriented modeling