APPLICATION OF DEMPSTER-SHAFER THEORY IN THE OPTIMAL MACHINE TOOLS STRUCTURE SELECTION

In the development phase, the designer makes decisions under conditions which are characterized with some degree of uncertainty, contradiction and ignorance. These conditions appear more in early phases of the design process. Following this, in this paper is presented the way of using evidential systems which represent a form of expert systems in which knowledge being represented and processed by function of the Belief Function Theory (Dempster-Shafer theory). The paper is focused on the conceptual design of machine tools, i.e. determination of the best structure of machining center in the phase of conceptual design for a predefined group of parts that are being machined on them.