Co-design Strategy Research Articles

ARE ECO-DESIGN STRATEGIES IMPLEMENTED IN PRODUCTS? A STUDY ON THE AGREEMENT LEVEL OF INDEPENDENT OBSERVERS

AbstractEco-Design Strategies lead to both enhanced environmental sustainability and product differentiation, which, however, takes place only if observers recognize and value these advantages. To study this aspect, a sample of 40 product pictures has been administered to 12 subjects with experience in eco-design. They were asked to evaluate whether one or more Eco-Design Strategies (in Vezzoli and Manzini's version) were implemented in each depicted product. The outcome of the evaluation was an overall fair agreement. Useful information for eco-design is inferred from nuances of the results.

Australian office workers' response to sedentary behaviour messaging

PurposeTo provide insight into how office workers respond to sedentary health messages following the introduction of the Australian Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines.Design/methodology/approachVia online survey, office workers (n = 185) reported awareness of the Guidelines and sedentary risk, availability of workplace movement-based initiatives, and measures of sitting time, intention, self-efficacy, and perceived barriers to sedentary behaviour. Participants then viewed one of two brief messages (“Occupational Risk” or “Strategies”); indicated their message receptivity and provided written recommendations. Participants who consented to a second survey (n = 126) completed sitting time and psychological measures again after four weeks.FindingsOnly 23% were aware of the Guidelines; willingness to follow public health guidance was mixed. Barriers to adoption were apparent for existing initiatives. Message receptivity was high for both messages. For the follow-up survey, an improvement in psychological variables and workplace sitting was reported in those who viewed the Occupational Risk compared to the Strategies message. Qualitative analysis revealed lack of organisational support and called for increased employer responsibility.Research limitations/implicationsAs participants self-selected into the study, the sample may be more health-conscious than the typical office worker.Practical implicationsWorkers are receptive to brief messages and the Occupational Risk message showed promise in promoting change. However, sedentary exposure is viewed as an organisational-level issue. A “whole of workplace” approach is needed with co-designed strategies tailored to the culture and working practices within the organisation.Originality/valueThis study offers insight into avenues for improving the management of prolonged sitting and workplace sedentary behaviour.

Multidisciplinary co-design optimization of structural and control parameters for bucket wheel reclaimer

Bucket wheel reclaimer (BWR) is an extremely complex engineering machine that involves multiple disciplines, such as structure, dynamics, and electromechanics. The conventional design strategy, namely, sequential strategy, is structural design followed by control optimization. However, the global optimal solution is difficult to achieve because of the discoordination of structural and control parameters. The co-design strategy is explored to address the aforementioned problem by combining the structural and control system design based on simultaneous dynamic optimization approach. The radial basis function model is applied for the planning of the rotation speed considering the relationships of subsystems to minimize the energy consumption per volume. Co-design strategy is implemented to resolve the optimization problem, and numerical results are compared with those of sequential strategy. The dynamic response of the BWR is also analyzed with different optimization strategies to evaluate the advantages of the strategies. Results indicate that co-design strategy not only can reduce the energy consumption of the BWR but also can achieve a smaller vibration amplitude than the sequential strategy.

게임형식을 차용한 데이터 예술 콘텐츠 디자인에 관한 연구 - 프로토타입 웨더퐁을 중심으로

This study focuses on the design of data art content using various data generated by the interactions among nature, humans, and artifacts, which empathizes with the current eco-environmental crisis and contemplates anthropocentrism. Sympathetic to the research topic of translife(extended life), the author specified research keywords and conceptualized this research. Through this conceptualization, the author hypothesized that interactive art content borrowing the Pong game format and using various real-time data could be appropriate as a form of participant experience(PX) to represent translife, proposing a prototype entitled Weather Pong. A virtual weather environment of the content was devised by creating emotion, weather, and environment bubbles made from the weather and environment data of Auckland and Seoul, along with human emotion data about weather mined by artificial intelligence. Participants had opportunities to reflect on the existence of humans and on the meaning of our lives, affecting the life of the tree in the center of the screen by popping bubbles by controlling the paddle and the ball. As a research methodology here, the author used design thinking. Based on this method, the author designed a PX consisting of familiarization and defamiliarization and implemented a stable interactive system through a co-design strategy using audio-visual mapping. Afterwards, the author exhibited Weather Pong at five exhibitions, including Translife: The International Triennial of New Media Art, thus confirming the significance of this study through evaluations of the PX. This study did not greatly succeed in providing an intuitive PX because there were differences between participant evaluations and expert evaluations. However, it is important to note that art has been shown to be an activist instrument that criticizes our society and demands its change by providing a fresh PX through the borrowing of game formats and by providing an alternative approach to data.

Surrogate Based Co-Design for Combined Structure and Control Design Problems

Design optimization of structure and control combined systems are coupled problems. The conventional sequential design strategy (structure design sequentially followed by control design) usually neglects the coupling effects between structure and control and can only produce sub-optimal designs of the complex systems. Nevertheless, simultaneous design strategy with a reasonable and explicit optimization iteration management can ensure global optimization designs of the coupled system. In this study, a surrogate based co-design is explored to achieve the simultaneous optimization, which transforms continuous optimal control problems into discrete nonlinear programming problems. The discrete control parameters combining with the structure parameters can be simultaneously optimized and the co-design strategy can be achieved by introducing necessary and reasonable dynamic constraints. Here, the proposed surrogate based co-design is tested using a practical engineering case study, a heavy-load face-shovel excavator (FSE). The case study is built upon existing FSE design problems by incorporating detailed structure and control design variables while satisfying the system dynamic equations. The proposed surrogate based co-design is implemented and compared with the conventional sequential design strategy and an existing co-design strategy. Results indicate that the surrogate based co-design is accurate and efficient enough to achieve better performances than the conventional sequential design strategy by making FSE’s structure more compact with relatively small vibrations.

A Comparative Study of Formulations and Algorithms for Reliability-Based Co-Design Problems

Abstract While integrated physical and control system co-design has been demonstrated successfully on several engineering system design applications, it has been primarily applied in a deterministic manner without considering uncertainties. An opportunity exists to study non-deterministic co-design strategies, taking into account various uncertainties in an integrated co-design framework. Reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) is one such method that can be used to ensure an optimized system design being obtained that satisfies all reliability constraints considering particular system uncertainties. While significant advancements have been made in co-design and RBDO separately, little is known about methods where reliability-based dynamic system design and control design optimization are considered jointly. In this article, a comparative study of the formulations and algorithms for reliability-based co-design is conducted, where the co-design problem is integrated with the RBDO framework to yield solutions consisting of an optimal system design and the corresponding control trajectory that satisfy all reliability constraints in the presence of parameter uncertainties. The presented study aims to lay the groundwork for the reliability-based co-design problem by providing a comparison of potential design formulations and problem–solving strategies. Specific problem formulations and probability analysis algorithms are compared using two numerical examples. In addition, the practical efficacy of the reliability-based co-design methodology is demonstrated via a horizontal-axis wind turbine structure and control design problem.

Event‐triggered fault detection for switched systems with time‐varying sojourn probabilities

SummaryIn this paper, a codesign strategy of an event‐triggered scheme and a fault detection filter (FDF) is developed for the networked switched systems with delayed measurements. A novel switching rule is proposed to better describe the switching behavior in a real system, under which the probability staying in each subsystem is time varying and results in a piecewise continuous system dynamics. An event‐triggered strategy based on the relative error with respect to the delayed measurement signal is established to reduce the communication burden. Our attention is concentrated on the construction of an event‐triggered fault detection technique for the proposed switched system with delayed measurements. Combining the stochastic analysis techniques and the average dwell time (ADT) method, a sufficient condition is obtained to guarantee the finite‐time boundedness of the generated residual system, the sensitivity of the residual signal to faults, and the disturbance attenuation of the switched system to external disturbances. Based on the established condition, a codesign strategy is developed to get the event‐triggered threshold and the FDF gain. Finally, two simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed design method.

Co-design of on-chip loop antenna and differential class-E power amplifier at 2.4 GHz for biotelemetry applications

Degradation in gain and efficiency of on-chip antennas limit the communication range of RF transmitters integrated with on-chip antennas below 10 GHz to few centimeters. In this paper, a novel strategy of co-design of fully integrated differential class-E power amplifier and on-chip loop antenna at 2.4 GHz is proposed to increase communication range and save chip area. In the co-design strategy, inductor used for harmonic rejection and matching in the power amplifier is replaced with a parallel capacitance network for harmonic rejection and a modified two turn on-chip loop antenna is used for matching load impedance of power amplifier. From the post-layout simulation results using Cadence Virtuoso, power amplifier has maximum power added efficiency(PAE) of 50.7%, and output power of 17 dBm. On-chip antenna, simulated in Advanced Design System(ADS) has a gain of −19.9 dBi and efficiency of 0.48%. The transmitter designed in UMC 180-nm technology has a higher computed communication range of 1.5 m and is suitable for biotelemetry applications such as patient monitoring.

Design optimization of WirelessHART networks in Cyber-Physical Systems

Abstract Recently, more and more factories begin to employ wireless mesh networks for process control. The high dynamics of wireless mesh network leads to a tight interaction between control performance and communication reliability. As a result, these wireless Cyber-Physical Systems need a holistic co-design approach to integrate the cyber space and physical space. In this paper, we establish a regulation of co-design strategies for wireless Cyber-Physical Systems. We also propose a heuristic algorithm to seek the feasible values of co-design parameters in the huge design space. A testbed is deployed for exploration and evaluation in industrial environment. The results show that our proposed co-design method provides an approach to enhance communication reliability and control performance even under harsh industrial environment.

A qualitative evaluation of a Young Parents Program (YPP) - Parent and facilitator perspectives.

Young parents (<25years) have lower engagement with health and community services and are more likely to experience negative outcomes in the perinatal period compared to older parents. The aim of this study was to evaluate the short to medium-term outcomes of the Young Parents Program (YPP), specifically designed to engage and support young parents, using responsive and codesign strategies in a community setting. A qualitative case study used data from interviews with participating parents (n=20) and a focus group with YPP facilitators (n=5). The findings report on the following short to medium-term YPP outcomes for parents and children. Young parents: are engaged in early parenting services that are welcoming, nonjudgemental and holistic; build parenting skills, knowledge, confidence and are tuned into their infants' needs; are empowered to codesign program activities to meet their parenting and nonparenting needs; have developed friendships and a social support network in their local community; and, are linked into community services and resources. Their children are cared for and stimulated with age-appropriate interactions and play. Flexible, responsive and codesigned programs for young parents are effective means of connecting parents to services, social support networks and can provide learning opportunities, which enhance both child and parent attachment and development. SO WHAT?: Qualitative evaluation provides an understanding of contextual factors - required to inform effective design and delivery of young parent community programs.

A Systematic Design Selection Methodology for System-Optimal Compliant Actuation

SummaryThis work presents a systematic design selection methodology that utilizes a co-design strategy for system-level optimization of compliantly actuated robots that are known for their advantages over robotic systems driven by rigid actuators. The introduced methodology facilitates a decision-making strategy that is instrumental in making selections among system-optimal robot designs actuated by various degrees of variable or fixed compliance. While the simultaneous co-design method that is utilized throughout guarantees systems performing at their full potential, a homotopy technique is used to maintain integrity via generation of a continuum of robot designs actuated with varying degrees of variable and fixed compliance. Fairness of the selection methodology is ensured via utilization of common underlying (variable) compliant actuation principle and dynamical task requirements throughout the generated system designs. The direct consequence of the developed methodology is that it allows robot designers make informed selections among a variety of systems which are guaranteed to perform at their best. Applicability of the introduced methodology has been validated using a case study for system-optimal design of an active knee prosthesis that is driven by a mechanically adjustable compliance and controllable equilibrium position actuator (MACCEPA) under a periodic/real-life dynamical task.

Dynamic Output Feedback Control of Discrete Markov Jump Systems based on Event-Triggered Mechanism

This paper is devoted to the co-design strategy of event-triggered scheme and dynamic output feedback controller for a class of discrete-time networked control systems (NCSs) with random time delay. An event-triggered mechanism is given to ease the information transmission. Both the sensor and controller are set with mode-dependent quantizers in the system. A Markov process is used to model the time delay which is used to describe the quantization density. By employing the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and linear matrix inequality (LMI), sufficient conditions are obtained for the system. A specific example is given to demonstrate the proposed approach.

Optimizing Incremental Step Pulse Programming for RRAM Through Device–Circuit Co-Design

A device–circuit co-design strategy of incremental step pulse programming (ISPP) tailored specifically for resistive-switching random access memory (RRAM) is elaborated using HfO2 RRAM as an example. The proposed strategy optimizes ISPP by considering programming energy, speed, peripheral circuit design, and device lifetime simultaneously. Interplay between ISPP configuration and device switching behavior is comprehensively clarified, and the result provides useful indicators for estimating peripheral circuit overhead and programming performance. Overstress effects affect both switching voltages and endurance lifetime substantially and, thus, should be carefully minimized.

Codesign of Unconventional Array Architectures and Antenna Elements for &lt;italic&gt;5G&lt;/italic&gt; Base Stations

An innovative methodological paradigm is proposed for the design of unconventional antenna systems for future 5G base stations. In such a codesign strategy, the antenna element (a spline-shaped patch embedded in a finite-array model ) and the overall irregularly clustered-array layout are simultaneously synthesized through a multiobjective antenna-shape optimization combined with a subarraying technique based on a new single-objective integer-coded genetic algorithm able to intrinsically handle constraints on the cluster shapes/types. Selected numerical examples, drawn from an exhaustive design process, are presented to assess the advantages and the effectiveness of the proposed co-design scheme in view of the final manufacturing of 5G base stations thanks to its capability to take into account the impact of mutual coupling, nonideal antenna patterns, and implementation limitations.

Co-Design Strategies for Optimal Variable Stiffness Actuation

Robotic systems powered by variable stiffness actuators (VSAs) provide important benefits for applications that demand safety, performance, and energy-efficiency. Being multidisciplinary systems, performance of such devices cannot be fully exploited unless co-design techniques that account for their inherent design couplings are employed for their optimization. These co-design strategies enable a synergetic design of mechanical and control aspects of the system. We present application of two alternative co-design frameworks to robotic systems with VSA and demonstrate their effectiveness on a case study for optimal system design of a robotic prosthesis. Our results indicate that substantial reductions in required motor torques, leading to important performance gains in system weight and bandwidth can be achieved, compared with suboptimal designs where design couplings are not considered. Furthermore, we provide a critical evaluation of the trade-offs involved in utilizing simultaneous versus nested co-design frameworks to obtain system level optima. In particular, we contrast the ease of implementation and computational efficiency of the simultaneous framework with the modular structure of the nested framework that allows using discipline-specific optimization tools and provide guidance in selecting the appropriate method for a given design task. Finally, through an example, we provide evidence that the system level optimization results can guide design of novel and more efficient actuation concepts.

Adaptive technologies and co-design strategies for historic spaces rehabilitation

The renewed interest for under used sites of historical city centres is addressing a change in design paradigms on existing buildings involving local communities in the process from the very beginning. The paper reports a recent cooperation, named “Anteprima Lab”, between the Department of Architecture (DA) of University of Bologna, the City of Bologna and Urban Center. The action is intended as an enabler of initiatives aimed at enhancing those places assumed as common goods by local communities. The pilot defined the functional and spatial features of an innovative participated environment that follows the socio-political trends characterizing the modern age of Bologna.

“3D·CoD”: A New Methodology for the Design of Virtual Reality-Mediated Experiences in Digital Archeology

Despite the capacity of Virtual Reality (VR) to recreate and enhance real and virtual worlds, many applications in Archaeology aim at the photorealistic depiction of architectural spaces. On the other hand, little is known about their real communicational effectiveness. In this context, the EU-funded project {LEAP] proposed the concept of Cultural Presence as the theoretical and methodological foundation for a new kind of VR-mediated experience, and the UNESCO World Heritage Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk (Turkey) was chosen as case of application. During this process, a survey of design pipelines in Digital Archaeology indicated that, to build such experiences, a new design and evaluation method may need to be adopted. This paper presents the process of building and testing “3D·CoD”, a new methodology for the design of VR-mediated experiences. Initially, different archaeologists working at Catalhoyuk were engaged in a first workshop, aimed at establishing a specific instantiation of Cultural Presence and how to depict it by means of VR. To that end, observation, questionnaires, multimodal, and statistical analyses were used. The results of this field work were translated into a co-design hands-on methodology (“3D·CoD”), which was tested in a second workshop, with a different group of archaeologists. In this case, observation and debriefing were used. The results of this evaluation suggest that co-design strategies are suitable for the creation of VR-mediated experiences, but that equally important is 1) to consider the co-designers’ concept of Archaeology; and 2) to think in terms, not of 3D models, but of Cultural Heritage goals and human experiences.

COVALENT, a method for co-designing value exchange in community-centred design

It is challenging to design for mutually beneficial relationships in a multi-actor service system when these actors have diverse and conflicting interests, and lack usable methods and tools that support the design process. This study introduces a novel method for co-designing value exchange (COVALENT). COVALENT integrates the value analysis model, co-design strategy and service design tools, to support the conceptualisation of reciprocal value exchanges based on the analysis of and matching between, stakeholders’ needs and resources. Its perceived effectiveness was validated through application to the development of community business models in Ulsan, South Korea. This study contributes to the knowledge of co-design by providing a method for co-designing services that aim to achieve reciprocal value exchanges in the context of community-centred design and by discussing the effectiveness of that method as perceived by users.

Design of a Fuzzy Networked Control Systems. Priority Exchange Scheduling Algorithm

This work presents a supervisory control strategy for Networked Control Systems (NCSs). This shows the identification and control of the plant using fuzzy theory. The fuzzy model incorporates the delay dynamics within the fuzzy rules based upon a real-time hierarchical scheduling strategy. A hierarchical scheduling Priority Exchange algorithm is used based upon codesign strategy following mutual correlation among control and network algorithms in order to bounded time delays. A system of magnetic levitation is presented as a case study.

Getting Closer, Empathising and Understanding: Setting the Stage for a Co-design Project with People with Dementia

This paper discusses the initial work of a doctoral research project that explores how communication design can enable people with dementia and their social circle to codesign strategies to communicate. The ethnographic exercise in two care institutions and a consequent design intervention are described, and its process deconstructed: approaching institutions and participants, developing empathy and understanding towards configuring participation, and defining next stages of research. This study draws from approaches related to Design Anthropology and Participatory Design, which are intertwined and mutually influential, reinforcing their importance in developing a design project for and with people.