This document discusses ad hoc collaborative design for multidisciplinary process chain development applied to thermal management of spacecraft. It motivates the need for software to support ad hoc collaboration between engineers from different disciplines during early design phases. It presents the integration framework RCE, which uses a peer-to-peer network approach to allow tools and optimization methods to be easily, remotely and ad hoc accessed from any participant in the network. RCE was shown to support the ad hoc collaboration needs in developing multidisciplinary process chains, but technical software alone does not solve the human challenges of collaboration.

1. www.DLR.de • Chart 1 > Ad hoc Collaborative Design... > Doreen Seider et al.
Ad hoc Collaborative Design with Focus on
Iterative Multidisciplinary Process Chain
Development applied to Thermal Management of
Spacecraft
Doreen Seider, Achim Basermann, Robert Mischke,
Martin Siggel, Anke Tröltzsch, Sascha Zur
CEAS 2013 – Linköping, 17.09.2013

2. www.DLR.de • Chart 2 > Ad hoc Collaborative Design... > Doreen Seider et al.
Motivation
• Multidisciplinary design optimization requires collaboration
• How can software support this kind of collaboration?
• What if the collaboration needs to be done ad hoc?

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Design Optimization in Thermal Management of
Spacecraft
• Objective: Design with maximum glide ratio
• Contraints: Upper mass, fixed trajectory

4. www.DLR.de • Chart 4 > Ad hoc Collaborative Design... > Doreen Seider et al.
Using Multidisciplinary Process Chain
• Process chains consist of multiple tools representing disciplines
• Executed automatically
• Integration Frameworks widely used

5. www.DLR.de • Chart 5 > Ad hoc Collaborative Design... > Doreen Seider et al.
Demand for Ad hoc Collaboration in
Multidisciplinary Process Chain Development
• In early design phase the process chain is set up when tools are still
under development
• Used integration framework must enable the user to use tools of other
disciplines
•
•
•
•
easily
in the latest version,
from remote,
and ad hoc.

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Integration Framework RCE
fuselage
.py
engine
.f77
wings
.c

7. www.DLR.de • Chart 7 > Ad hoc Collaborative Design... > Doreen Seider et al.
Integration Framework RCE

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Network and Communication in RCE
• Typical client-server model results in quite static network layouts
• Network of RCE is based on peer-to-peer approach
RCE installation
Direction of initialization
C…Compute nodes
R…Relays
U…User frontend machines

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Ad hoc Distribution of Tools with RCE
• Tools are integrated into RCE in a declarative way
• Tools are always executed on the machine the corresponding RCE
installation is running
• Once the corresponding RCE installation get part of an RCE peer-to-peer
network, the tool can be used by others

10. www.DLR.de • Chart 10> Ad hoc Collaborative Design... > Doreen Seider et al.
Ad hoc Distribution of Optimization Methods with
RCE
• RCE can be extended with custom optimization methods
• Again, optimization methods are always executed on the machine the
corresponding RCE installation is running
• Again, once the corresponding RCE installation get part of an RCE peerto-peer network, the optimization method can be used by others

11. www.DLR.de • Chart 11> Ad hoc Collaborative Design... > Doreen Seider et al.
Conclusions
• Demand for ad hoc collaboration in early design phase during process
chain development
• Experiences made with RCE as integration framework supporting ad hoc
collaboration
• It is the right way to go
• But: Technical support with the help of software doesn‘t solve the human
challenges regarding collaboration