Handling Multiple Objectives in Decentralized Design

Most complex systems, including engineering systems such as cars, airplanes, and satellites, are the results of the interactions of many distinct entities working on different parts of the design. Decentralized systems constitute a special class of design under distributed environments. They are characterized as large and complex systems divided into several smaller entities that have autonomy in local optimization and decision-making. A primary issue in decentralized design processes is to ensure that the designers that are involved in the process converge to a single design solution that is optimal and meets the design requirements, while being acceptable to all the participants. This is made difficult by the strong interdependencies between the designers, which are usually characteristic of such systems. This paper proposes a critical review of standard techniques to modeling and solving decentralized design problems, and shows mathematically the challenges created by having multiobjective subsystems. A method based on set-based design is then proposed to alleviate some of these challenging issues. An illustration of its applicability is given in the form of the design of a space satellite.