Preference Set-based Design Research Articles

Multi-Objective Design of EMI Filter with Uncertain Parameters by Preference Set-Based Design Method and Polynomial Chaos Method

Multi-Objective Design of EMI Filter with Uncertain Parameters by Preference Set-Based Design Method and Polynomial Chaos Method

Kansei evaluation on shape design and color of PET bottle

In this study, we propose an evaluation method based on Kansei Engineering to clarify the main factors that affect the impression of the shape and label design of PET bottles. Focusing only on PET bottles of natural water, we classified them by clustering method using physical shape and label design features, evaluated them by Kansei engineering method, determined design parameters by Preference Set-Based Design (PSD) analysis, and clarified the main factors of impression. First, PET bottle samples were prepared, and cluster analysis was conducted to classify them into representative categories. These samples were subjected to online and offline sensory evaluation by various subjects, and the impressions of the PET bottles were clarified from the sensory evaluation. In order to eliminate the bias of the subjects, cluster analysis is conducted to classify them into representative categories with similar preferences for PET bottles. Finally, PSD analysis is conducted to identify the main factors that influence the impression of the bottle shape and label design.

Multi-Objective Satisfactory Design Solution Sets for Designing a Maximum Crash -Worthy Cabin Section Shape Using Preference Set-Based Design

Multi-Objective Satisfactory Design Solution Sets for Designing a Maximum Crash -Worthy Cabin Section Shape Using Preference Set-Based Design

選好度付セットベースデザイン（PSD）手法のフィルタ設計への適用の検討

Electrical design is usually made with the concepts based on the electric circuit theory. Nowadays it needs to consider the electromagnetic (EM) fields generated in devices, components, and equipment to achieve their expected performances and satisfy the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) regulations as well. In such kind of design, it is required to pursue a solution which satisfies simultaneously multi-objective performances sometimes including conflicting requirements. In this paper, the application of a multi-objective satisfactory design method to electrical design is discussed. The method, named preference set-based design (PSD), is developed as a concurrent design method in the field of mechanical engineering. As a first application to electric and electronic fields, the method is applied to filter designs and its validity is discussed. Applied filter is an ordinary five-order low-pass filter composed of plural element parameters and objectives or performances of attenuation characteristics. In practical cases, some design uncertainties should be taken into account, for example an unnecessary magnetic fields coupling between inductors. Design solution expressed in terms of point value cannot easily and effectively handle the design uncertainties since there is no theoretical guarantee that the solution converges in such case. Such an uncertainty problem is treated in this study. By using the resultant parameter sets, the attenuation characteristics are analyzed and confirmed whether the required performances are satisfied.

実行可能領域の縮小と設計変数範囲の絞り込みを行う選好度セットベース設計手法

Due to the complexity of the product development, set-based design method has been developing to reduce production time and cost. This method adopts the adjustable ranges of design variables and tolerates the design changes in the latter design process. Based on this method, Ishikawa et al. proposed the Preference Set-Based Design (PSD) method. This method takes in designer’s preference of the design variables and performance ranges, and defines the relationships between those ranges and preferences. In this method, the design variable ranges are transformed into the performance ranges using the objective function for each preference, and the derived ranges are compared with the preferred performance ranges. If the derived ranges do not meet the preferred ranges, the design variable ranges are narrowed. In the conventional method, design variable ranges are divided equally and performance ranges of all the combinations are calculated until an unacceptable performance ranges are eliminated. However, this method is inefficient because the number of function calls increase rapidly as the number of dividing ranges and design variables increases. This study aims to improve the efficiency of the process of eliminating unacceptable performance ranges using the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The proposed method was applied to a numerical example using the Rastrigin function and derived better ranges than those of the conventional methods.

Upgradable Design for Reduction of Production Cost and CO<sub>2</sub> Emission - Case Study of a Laptop Computer

An upgrade product design method is one of the efficient design methods for reducing environmental loads caused by mass production, consumption, and disposal. This method seeks to design a product that can adapt to future required performance and functions via component upgrade by exchanging components in the early phase of design. Because considerations of future product performance and functions include uncertain design information, an accurate prediction is very difficult. Therefore, this study defines uncertain design information as ranged sets, and applies a preference set-based design method that can correspondingly obtain ranged sets of design solutions. In previous studies, proposed methods were focused on product performance enhancement without quantitative consideration of environmental loads. Hence, this study proposes an upgrade product design method that can address the enhancement of product performance, while concurrently reducing production cost and environmental load, which is herein strictly defined as the amount of CO2 emission. Finally, our proposed upgrade product design method is applied to a laptop PC design problem to demonstrate its utility.

Set-based Design Method for Multi-objective Structural Design with Conflicting Performances Under Topological Change

In car manufacturing, sustainable structural design with multiple conflicting objectives like weight reduction for less CO2 emission, strength and rigidity is essential. This research focuses on topological optimization method with which greater weight reduction is expected to be achieved. In view of the application of preference set-based design (PSD) method, topologically satisfied design is considered. We applied PSD method to the design of topological model. This study indicates the efficacy of PSD method to topological design problems including weight reduction aspect.

Application of preference set-based design method to multilayer porous materials for sound absorbency and insulation

Handling uncertainties at the early phase of design is of great importance for front-loading product development. Designers often have preferences for design parameters of a design object even if they include uncertain information. The present study proposes a new set-based design approach for the early phase of design that intrinsically contains various sources of uncertainties. The proposed design approach, a preference set-based design (PSD) method, obtains a ranged set of feasible design solutions while incorporating the designer's preference for design parameters represented as preference functions instead of a single-point solution under design uncertainties by eliminating infeasible and inferior subsets of solutions. The present study applies the PSD method to a material design problem of a multilayer sound absorption/insulator including porous material. It is difficult to predict the performance because of a number of design parameters such as Biot parameters (i.e. porosity, density, tortuosity, flow resistivity, viscous characteristic length, loss factor and Poisson's ratio of a material) and production tolerance. We develop a performance prediction system based on the PSD method that can obtain the ranged set of design solutions that satisfy the ranged sets of performance requirements through set-to-set space mapping from design space to performance space and space narrowing to eliminate infeasible design subspaces. Through the application of design of the material design problem, the advantages of the PSD method for obtaining the multi-objective solution under design uncertainties toward front-loading product development are discussed.

Collaborative engineering among designers with different preferences: Application of the preference set–based design to the design problem of an automotive front-side frame

The advancement of computer networks and information technologies has been rapidly changing the manufacturing environment of the industrial age to that of the current information era. The engineering philosophy has been shifted from concurrent engineering to collaborative engineering among the respective areas of expertise in a design space. Handling uncertainties in an initial design process is of great importance, particularly for collaborative engineering. For collaborative engineering, designers having different preferences in the different disciplines need to represent their own possible design solutions or design solution spaces, and they also need to understand the other designers’ design solution spaces. We have proposed a preference set-based design method that enables a flexible and robust design under various sources of uncertainties, while capturing a designer’s preference. In this study, the proposed method was applied to a real industrial multi-objective design problem (i.e. an automotive front-side frame design). This study discusses the suitability of our proposed approach for obtaining the multi-objective satisfactory solutions that reflect the different design preferences of different designers in their design solutions for collaborative engineering.

Decision-making support for sustainable product creation

A satisfactory multiobjective design that incorporates physical performance as well as sustainability is necessary from a global environmental protection perspective. For obtaining sustainable lifecycles, decision making in the early phases of the design process, considering multiple sources of uncertainty, is important. Previously, we proposed a preference set-based design (PSD) by Inoue et al. (2010) [16] method, which enables a flexible and robust design under various sources of uncertainty while capturing the designer’s preference based on his/her knowledge or experience. The present study focuses on a decision-making support for sustainable product creation in the early phases of the design process considering the various design uncertainties. We investigate different officially accepted sustainability indicators and identify the ones that are related to the product development process by considering the physical performance and sustainability of the products concurrently. Thereafter, the proposed method is applied to a multiobjective design problem. This paper discusses the applicability of PSD as a decision-making support method for sustainable development using the design of an alternator as an example.

Design Support System by Combination of 3D-CAD and CAE with Preference Set-based Design Method

Various computer-based simulation tools such as 3D-CAD systems and CAE are widely used to design products at the early phase of design. Designers must search the optimal solution that satisfies a number of performance requirements by repeating analysis and modification of the CAD models. They need to confirm the results of CAE analysis until they can obtain a better design solution. These works impose a heavy burden on designers and analysts. Therefore, design works can be more efficient if we can automate these iterative processes. Moreover, the early phase of design contains multiple sources of uncertainty in describing design, and nevertheless the decision-making process at this phase exerts a critical effect upon drawing a successful design. Therefore, handling the uncertainties in the early phase of design has great importance especially for concurrent engineering (CE). The previous series of our studies have proposed a preference set-based design (PSD) method that enables the flexible and robust design while incorporating designer’s preference structure. In contrast to conventional optimization techniques, this method generates a ranged set of design solutions that satisfy sets of performance requirements. The combination of 3D-CAD and CAE with PSD method can be more powerful design support system. In this study, a system based on PSD method is implemented by combination of 3D-CAD and CAE, and a design example of a swing arm is demonstrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed system for obtaining the multi-objective satisfactory solutions reflecting the designers’ intentions.

A new 3D-CAD system for set-based parametric design

So far, there has been an extraordinary development of computer-aided tools intended to generate, present or communicate 3D models. But there has not been a comparable progress in the development of 3D-CAD systems intended to assist designers in representing and manipulating both geometric and non-geometric design information based on solid models, thus facilitating concurrent engineering (CE). Design objects continue to be produced by traditional means using the computer as little more than a drafting tool. In addition, the state-of-the-art 3D-CAD systems are incapable of encoding engineering uncertainties since only precise single-valued assignments are allowed for their modeling operations. Recently, set-based CE (SBCE) has been attracting public attention as an emerging CE paradigm. Such a set-based design (SBD) approach presents many possibilities in handling the uncertainties that are intrinsic at the early phases of design. This paper addresses a novel concept – set-based parametric design (SBPD) – which combines the SBD practice with the parametric modeling technique widely used in most 3D-CAD systems. A preference set-based design (PSD) model and a design information solid (DIS) model are proposed to incorporate the SBPD concept into the current 3D-CAD systems. Finally, a prototype system is implemented to illustrate the potential to achieve a SBPD practice.

209 設計者の設計意図の考慮と多目的満足化を実現するセットベース設計手法

The conceptual design phase contains multiple sources of uncertainty in describing design, and nevertheless the decision-making process at this phase exerts a critical effect upon drawing a successful design. The proposed preference set-based design method, consisting of set representation, set propagation, set modification, and set narrowing, which enables the flexible and robust design while incorporating designer's intention. In contrast to the conventional optimization techniques, this method generates a ranged set of design solutions that satisfy changing sets of performance requirements. This paper presents the applicability of our proposal for obtaining the multi-objective satisfactory design solutions by applying to an automotive front-side frame.

Representing and Aggregating Engineering Quantities with Preference Structure for Set-based Concurrent Engineering

The early phase of design intrinsically contains multiple sources of uncertainties in describing the design, and nevertheless the decision-making process at this phase exerts a critical effect upon drawing a successful design. Recently, set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) has been attracting public attention as an emerging CE paradigm. Representing and communicating set-valued information are useful in handling engineering uncertainties and efficient for the collaboration between designers in the CE environment. Even if we can readily know that SBCE is efficient and powerful enough for large-scale design and management, the existing literature does not give the details of methods to achieve SBCE principles. We have developed a computer-based framework, called ‘preference set-based design’ (PSD), for implementing SBCE principles, which consists of set representation, propagation, modification, narrowing, and aggregation methods. This article focuses on the set representation and aggregation methods that play an important role in the CE environment. This article proposes new engineering quantities that can capture the designer’s preference structure on both the continuous and the discrete sets. A new aggregation method is presented to aggregate the proposed engineering quantities. A comparative analysis with the existing representation and aggregation techniques is also provided.