Ontological Modelling of Knowledge Management for Human-Machine Integrated Design of Ultra-Precision Grinding Machine

Despite of the rapid development of computer science and information technology, human-machine integrated design of complex mechatronic products is still not fully accomplished, partly because of the inharmonious communication among collaborators. Therefore, one challenge in human-machine integration is how to establish an appropriate knowledge management (KM) model to support integration and sharing of heterogeneous product knowledge. Aiming at the diversity of design knowledge, this paper proposes an ontology-based model to reach at an unambiguous and normative representation of the knowledge. Firstly, an ontology-based human-machine integrated design framework is described, then corresponding ontologies and sub-ontologies are established according to different purposes and scopes. Secondly, a similarity calculation-based ontology integration method composed of ontology mapping and ontology merging is introduced. The ontology searching-based knowledge sharing method is then developed. Finally, a case of human-machine integrated design of a large ultra-precision grinding machine is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.