Plan-Based Derivation of General Functional Structures in Product Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel AI planning-based method for decomposing product functions into smaller, interacting functions, facilitating computer-supported design with logic-based solvers and engineering function libraries.

Contribution

It formulates function decomposition as a planning problem, enabling the use of AI planning algorithms and logic-based solvers for product design.

Findings

Successful application to two different design examples

Demonstrates transferability of the planning approach

Enhances automation in product function decomposition

Abstract

In product design, a decomposition of the overall product function into a set of smaller, interacting functions is usually considered a crucial first step for any computer-supported design tool. Here, we propose a new approach for the decomposition of functions especially suited for later solutions based on Artificial Intelligence. The presented approach defines the decomposition problem in terms of a planning problem--a well established field in Artificial Intelligence. For the planning problem, logic-based solvers can be used to find solutions that compute a useful function structure for the design process. Well-known function libraries from engineering are used as atomic planning steps. The algorithms are evaluated using two different application examples to ensure the transferability of a general function decomposition.