IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE DESIGN ...

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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:



Extend method to other design domains



Strengthen techniques in scale and specificity



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