公开(公告)号：EP1015942A4

公开(公告)日：2000-09-13

申请号：EP98935963

申请日：1998-07-23

申请人： ENVIRONMENTAL RES INST

发明人： PARUNAK H VAN DYKE ,  SAUTER JOHN A

IPC分类号： G05B13/02 ,  G06F17/50

CPC分类号： G05B13/024 ,  G06Q10/0635 ,  Y10S706/919

摘要： An apparatus for determining assignments to attributes (e.g., electrical power or overall dimensional size) of components (40) within a system. A computerized constraint network (98) is constructed which uses constraint agents (124), variable agents (128), and task agents (132) in order to make assignments to the attributes of the components based upon market-based constraint optimization techniques. The attributes have variables (28) indicative of the assignments to the attributes. Constraint data structures (150) assist the agents in determining permissible assignments for the variables (28). The constraint data structures (150) use preferential rules (152) for determining the assignments to the variables (28). The preferential rules (152) indicate which assignments for the variables (28) of the agents produce higher utility and lower cost.