SET APPROXIMATION BASED COMBINATORIAL SEARCH FOR INTERACTION NETWORK-BASED CONCEPTUAL DESIGN

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Choi, Keunho | Kim, Kyoung-Yun | Yang, Hyung-Jeong

Affiliations: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Wayne State University, MI, USA | School of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju-si, South Korea

Abstract: Cross-disciplinary technologies are noticeable phenomena in modern products, as found in renewable energy and electric vehicle industries. However, current conceptual design tools have been limited to respond these cross-disciplinary technology products. One of remarkable characteristics in this technology change is transforming an existing product with multiple cross-disciplinary technologies. Interaction Networks have been designed to respond this phenomenon. The networks aim to support a design process (i.e. transformation process) to produce a new product from a base product by adding and/or converting functions/features with reference products or technologies. In this paper, we propose a set approximation technique that can search functions and structures that are beyond the existing design repository, while considering a design process context to combine multi-disciplinary functions/features. Also, to facilitate the transformation process, this paper proposes the Function-Behavior Interaction and Structure-Behavior networks, and compares a base product with multiple products via the two types of networks.

Keywords: conceptual design, product transformation, design context, rough set theory, set approximation, design combinatorial search

Journal: Journal of Integrated Design & Process Science, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 1-15, 2011