| Advancement in technology is usually made by building on previous experiences and learning from past successes and failures. However, knowledge transfer in the broad field of product design is often difficult to accomplish. Research has shown that successful component configurations, observed from existing products, can be dissected and stored for reuse; but few computational tools exist to assist designers during the conceptual phase of design. Many well-known manual methods (e.g. brainstorming, intrinsic and extrinsic searches, and morphological analysis) rely heavily on individual bias and experience and are often time intensive, laborious tasks that may not catch solutions that are functionally analogous, but seemingly unrelated.; This research presents an automated concept generation tool that augments traditional activities during the conceptual phase of design. The automated concept generator draws on the existing knowledge contained within a repository of existing design solutions to quickly produce numerous feasible concepts early in the design process that each satisfy the functional requirements for a design problem. The computational algorithm enables the development of a computerized design tool that complements other concept generation activities, such as brainstorming and morphological analyses. By quickly presenting numerous concepts from products that have already been developed, this design tool provides a broader set of initial concepts for evaluation than a designer may generate alone when limited by his/her personal experiences. |
