contract unfold nest couple disconnect extend deflate unwrap camouflage fuse branch inflate shorten reveal shell interlock segment stretch shrink unfurl wrap.
IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE DESIGN OF INNOVATIVE RECONFIGURABLE ROBOTICS SOSA, MOHAN AND WOOD SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN
International Design and Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE 2014)
• Domain: products that combine multiple primary functions • Reconfigurable robotics challenges: • To identify applications • To build evidence-based design methods
• Transformation in design: • The reversible change between two or more states in a single design • Where each state activates or enables a specific function • Transform operators encompass design principles, facilitators and guidelines
• Functions: • drafting compass = to draw precise circles and arcs • pair of scissors = to cut paper
• “Compassors” integrates a transform function to reversibly activate two independent states
• Problem: lack of knowledge and methods to systematically teach and innovatively resolve such transform functions
Research journey
6 Design Principles
• Expand and collapse: change physical dimensions to bring about an increase/decrease in occupied volume primarily along an axis, in a plane, or in three dimensions
• Expose and cover: reveal or conceal a new surface to alter functionality
• Fuse and divide: make a single functional device become two or more devices (discretization), at least one of which has its own distinct functionality defined by the state of the transformer, or vice versa Singh, V., Skiles, S., Krager, J., Wood, K., Jensen, D., & Sierakowski, S. (2009). Innovations in Design through transformation: A fundamental study of transformation principles. ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 131, 081010-081010-18.
Semantic analysis
• We use a lexical database to inspect traces and select highlevel glosses
• Structure is synonymy linking terms by conceptual relations derived from rich linguistic corpora
• Path length between terms by measuring their distance in this hierarchy
• Aim is to facilitate cross-domain selection and processing of semantically rich keywords
Hierarchy
Gloss
Definition
change#v#2: change_magnitude#v#1:
increase#v#1
become bigger or greater in amount
change#v#2: change_magnitude#v#1:
decrease#v#1
decrease in size, extent, or range
show#v#4:
expose#v#3
to show, make visible or apparent
hide#v#1:
cover#v#11
hide from view or knowledge
change#v#2: change_state#v#1:
integrate#v#3
become one; become integrated
divide#v#4
separate into parts or portions
change#v#2: change integrity#1:
path
3
4
4
Set of 270 ‘sister terms’ in the paper: glosses that share a common hypernym
Operators derived from semantic analysis
Principles
Transform operators
Expand
Increase
Collapse
Decrease
Expose
Expose
Cover
Cover
Fuse
Integrate
Divide
Divide
Selection process
• Experts chose the most representative terms from this vocabulary to characterize the design space in robotics
• Unanimous terms independently chosen have a median path length ≤ 3; therefore semantically robust and empirically valid* increase elongate enlarge expand extend inflate stretch
decrease collapse compress contract deflate shorten shrink
expose fan uncover unfold unwrap reveal unfurl
cover enclose fold nest camouflage shell wrap
integrate attach connect couple fuse interlock join
divide decouple detach disconnect branch segment split
* further reduction methods are left for future work
Patent analysis - Patent “design” space is order of magnitude larger than “robot” space - IP legalese likely to skew results - Design and robotics patents have similar topology - Despite reversibility, patent space is uneven:
increase, cover and integrate more common than decrease, expose, and divide ABST of USPTO Reissue and Design Patents, European, Japan Abstracts, WIPO (1976 -2013)
Robot patent: “attach”
Design patent: “divide”
Robot patent: “extend”
Design patent: “unfold”
Conclusions
• Significant (unexpected) overlap between design and robot patent spaces. Notable exceptions of exclusive operators: High frequency
Low frequency
Operators exclusive to robot patent space
Elongate, Detach
Fuse, Shell, Reveal
Operators exclusive to design patent space
Divide, Compress
Nest, Wrap, Inflate
• Characterization of the space of transformer designs in robotics • Collaboration themes in robotics/design transformation • Potential opportunities in unexplored areas for innovative solutions
• Deductive semantic analysis for design exploration
Expert assessment - Aim: rate the potential novelty of transform operators in robotics - Novelty assessments align well with our analysis of the patent space - The ten keywords judged as most novel link to 87 or 2% of patents; the ten least novel link to 46% patents - Our method captures the qualitative reasoning of potential novelty
A robot that attaches? A robot that branches (out)? A robot that camouflages? A robot that collapses?
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Discussion
•
In this work we deductively analyze and expand the conceptual space of transformation operators
•
And apply semantic analysis to examine existing designs as a way to characterize the state of the art in a given domain
•
Future work:
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Extend method to other design domains
•
Strengthen techniques in scale and specificity
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Abductive approach to analyze the ideation processes supported by our transform operators
Thank you! We wish to acknowledge the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC) (http://www.sutd.edu.sg/idc.aspxidc.sutd.edu.sg) for its support and encouragement to take the research to new levels. Any opinions, findings, or recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors.
The method is presented here:
•
to formulate semantically rich vocabularies to represent design operators
•
to reduce such collection of terms in order to formulate keywords that produce a representative map of large design knowledge bases, in this case full-text databases of patents
•
to identify potential opportunities in such design spaces and to identify themes for cross-disciplinary collaboration
•
to identify under-represented regions in the solution space that may lead to innovative solutions, with a high probability of these solutions being relevant and feasible given the tight semantic relationship from which they are derived
Limitations
• Legalese and idiosyncrasies of patents from different eras and systems (USPTO, WIPO, EPO, and Japan)
• Limited query formats, in future studies to include proximity, phrase, wildcard, term-weighting, and possibly collocation and relatedness metrics
• Limited expert assessment, in future to include groups of raters and consensual techniques
270 ‘sister terms’: glosses that share a common hypernym Increase accelerate accumulate add aggrandize amplify attenuate beef (up) boost breed build up burgeon compound construct develop dilate elevate elongate enhance enlarge erect escalate expand extend flourish grow heighten highten inflate intensify lengthen lift magnify maximize multiply prolong propagate protract pump up raise reinforce roll up snowball stretch swell
Decrease abate abbreviate abridge collapse compress concentrate condense consolidate constrict contract cram crop curtail cut back/down de-escalate deflate dent deplete diminish downscale drop dry up dwindle ease evaporate flatten jam-pack knock down lessen lower narrow phase down prune recede reduce relent shorten shrink simplify slash slow (down) squeeze telescope trim truncate
Expose acknowledge advertise arise bare blaze blossom bring out bud burst communicate debunk demonstrate disclose display emerge erupt evince fan (out) flare flash flaunt inform lay out leak open parade post present publish reveal spill squeal strut surface talk tell uncloak uncover undrape undress unearth unfold unfurl unwrap unveil
Cover armor becloud bedim befog belie blanket block bound box (in) cage camouflage cloak cocoon confine contain curtain darken disguise eclipse encapsulate encircle enclose encyst enshroud envelop fold gild gloss (over) house include limit mask muffle nest obscure obstruct occlude occult screen shade shell shroud smother surround wrap
Integrate adhere affix amalgamate articulate assemble associate attach bolt chain cinch clamp cluster combine compose compound concatenate conjoin connect cord couple dovetail fix fuse glue hitch homogenize hook incorporate interlock intermesh join knit link meet recombine rivet share splice stick string unify unite weld wire yoke
Divide bifurcate bisect branch (out) break up/down cleave crumble cut off decouple detach deteriorate disassemble disconnect disentangle disintegrate disjoin dissect dissolve distance distribute disunite fester fork fractionalize fracture fragment halve mushroom part partition quarter ramify recede rend rift rip rive scatter segment segregate sever split spread unlink untie unyoke
