• CN: 11-2187/TH
  • ISSN: 0577-6686

Journal of Mechanical Engineering ›› 2026, Vol. 62 ›› Issue (15): 1-23.doi: 10.3901/JME.260645

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A Survey of Intelligent Design and Manufacturing in the Era of Large Models: Research Status, Technical Challenges, and Application Prospects

JIA Weiqiang1,2, LIU Xin3, PENG Xiang4, WANG Xun1, LIU Zhenyu2, LIU Hui2, ZHU Weidong5, CHENG Jin5, TAN Jianrong2,5   

  1. 1. School of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018;
    2. State Key Laboratory of Computer-Aided Design and Computer Graphic, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058;
    3. Hunan Province Key Laboratory of Safety Design and Reliability Technology for Engineering Vehicle, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410114;
    4. School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023;
    5. State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Components and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058
  • Received:2025-09-10 Revised:2026-03-18 Published:2026-10-13

Abstract: In the era of large models, intelligent technology systems underpinned by generative pretraining and supported by post-training alignment and tool augmentation are rapidly penetrating industrial verticals, driving intelligent design and manufacturing from “local digitalization” toward “global cognitive intelligence.” This study systematically reviews recent progress in large-model-enabled intelligent design and manufacturing, and summarizes five major research directions: multimodal engineering semantic alignment, engineering knowledge augmentation with rule/mechanism injection, conceptual generative modeling with editable representations, integrated performance/reliability inference and evaluation, and explicit reasoning optimization with multi-agent collaborative execution. From the perspective of system-level industrial applications, five key bottlenecks are further identified: mismatch of cross-domain engineering semantic state spaces, insufficient executability of knowledge and mechanism constraints, difficulty in mapping generative configurations to manufacturing-driven long operation sequences, inadequate physical consistency in performance/reliability inference under extreme conditions, and instability in long-chain collaborative optimization and autonomous execution. Accordingly, several potential application forms are discussed, including manufacturing-constraint-embedded design synthesis, constraint-dynamic knowledge services and decision support, natural-language-driven cross-stage operation sequence transformation, physics-prior-enhanced performance/reliability prediction, and explicit-reasoning-guided collaborative optimization and autonomous resource reconfiguration. Finally, case studies on an interactive CAD generation model and an aviation manufacturing domain-specific large model are presented to reveal the pathway through which large-model technologies evolve from algorithmic capabilities to engineering system capabilities.

Key words: large model technology system, intelligent design and manufacturing, multimodal alignment, knowledge augmentation, generative modeling, performance/reliability assessment, multi-agent collaboration

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