The design research pyramid: a three layer framework

To support knowledge-based design development, considerable research has been conducted from various perspectives at different levels. The research on knowledge-based design support systems, generic design artefact and design process modelling, and the inherent quality of design knowledge itself are some examples of these perspectives. The structure underneath the research is not a disparate one but ordered. This paper provides an overview of some ontologies of design knowledge and a layered research framework of knowledge-based engineering design support. Three layers of research are clarified in this pattern: knowledge ontology, design knowledge model, and application. Specifically, the paper highlights ontologies of design knowledge by giving a set of classifications of design knowledge from different points of view. Within the discussion of design knowledge content ontology, two topologies, i.e., teleology and evolutionary, are identified

Ontologias O3F: conversão de UML e extracção em CO3L

Esta dissertação centra-se no modelo de representação de ontologias O3F e da correspondente linguagem CO3L, ambos desenvolvidos no grupo de Agentes e Inteligência Artificial do Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologias da Informação do ISCTE-IUL. Pretende-se alcançar dois objectivos. O primeiro consiste em melhorar e expandir o O3F e o CO3L para aumentar a sua expressividade, especialmente no sentido de permitir a representação de modelos UML e ontologias OWL. O segundo consiste na criação de ferramentas computacionais para ontologias O3F, a principal das quais é um conversor automático de UML para O3F/CO3L. Pretende-se assim que as ontologias O3F possam ser especificadas em UML, tirando partido das suas ferramentas de desenvolvimento, e aproximar o O3F da grande comunidade de especialistas de modelação UML. Adicionalmente, foram também feitas contribuições para a construção de um servidor de ontologias O3F e desenvolveu-se um mecanismo capaz de extrair, na linguagem textual CO3L, as ontologias armazenadas nesse servidor. Decidiu-se apostar no O3F porque, quando comparado com outras abordagens à representação de ontologias (OWL, Ontolingua e UML), revela várias vantagens e, além disso, tem sido desenvolvida no grupo de investigação em que esta dissertação se integra. Exemplos dessas vantagens são a capacidade de especificar acções ou de modelar segundo vários paradigmas (orientado a objectos, relacional/funcional, ou misturando ambos). A avaliação deste trabalho conclui que as melhorias feitas ao modelo e à linguagem têm utilidade e cumpriram os seus objectivos, e que as ferramentas desenvolvidas efectuam processamentos correctos, têm utilidade e são práticas de usar.This dissertation is focused on the ontology representation model O3F and the corresponding language CO3L, both developed by the Agents and Artificial Intelligence group of the Department of Sciences and Information Technologies of ISCTE-IUL. It is intended to achieve two goals. The first one consists of improving and expanding O3F and CO3L in order to increase their expressiveness, especially to allow the representation of UML models and OWL ontologies. The second one consists of developing computer tools for O3F ontologies, the most important of which is an automatic translator from UML to O3F/CO3L. This translator is meant to allow the specification of O3F ontologies in UML, taking advantage of its development tools, and to bridge the gap between O3F and the large and important UML community. In addition, contributions were made to build an ontology server for O3F, and a mechanism capable of extracting, in the CO3L text language, the ontologies stored on the developed server. It was decided to invest in O3F because, when compared to other formal representation languages (OWL, Ontolingua and UML), it shows several advantages and also because it has been developed in the research group where this dissertation was done. Some examples of O3F advantages are its capability to specify actions and is multi-paradigm modeling abilities (object oriented, relational/functional or mixing both). The evaluation of this work concludes that the improvements made to the model and language achieved their goals, and that the developed tools are correct, useful and user-friendly

Knowledge-based inventive conceptual design

Conceptual design is the first phase of the design process. Most basic functions of a new product and the solutions for solving design problems are generated in this critical phase, which will affect the attributes in the later detailed design process. Conceptual design, especially the process of concept generation, is an innovation process that is achieved by human intelligence. The intuition and experience of designers play a significant role during the design process which is hard to be replaced by computer-aided tools or artificial intelligence technology. TR1Z is an inventive problem-solving tool to help people improve creativity. It is applied in this work to generate creative design concepts. The TRIZ inventive principles are extended by integrating other TRIZ tools and TRIZ-derived tools. These principles are also restructured by the inspiration of I-Ching. The Behaviour-Entity representation of inventive principles enables the generation of new and innovative solutions based on TRIZ. The TRIZ Contradiction Matrix (CM) and inventive principles are then used to develop the TRIZ-based concept generation approach by adding constraints to the standard Behaviour-Entity representation of TRIZ. This approach is developed to retrieve modified TRIZ inventive principles and to generate new solutions by re-organising the BEC (Behaviour-Entity-Constraint) representation of principles according to the conflicting design requirements. Finally, a negotiation-based approach is integrated with an existing no-compromise approach to develop a knowledge-based system for automatically detecting and resolving conflicts. The recommendation is given as an output arranged by weight to help the designer improve creativity and efficiency for concept generation and conflict resolution in conceptual design. The approach is implemented by using a rule-based language, JESS. A case study of aircraft fuselage layout design is presented to demonstrate the benefits of using this conflict resolution system.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Knowledge-based inventive conceptual design

Conceptual design is the first phase of the design process. Most basic functions of a new product and the solutions for solving design problems are generated in this critical phase, which will affect the attributes in the later detailed design process. Conceptual design, especially the process of concept generation, is an innovation process that is achieved by human intelligence. The intuition and experience of designers play a significant role during the design process which is hard to be replaced by computer-aided tools or artificial intelligence technology. TR1Z is an inventive problem-solving tool to help people improve creativity. It is applied in this work to generate creative design concepts. The TRIZ inventive principles are extended by integrating other TRIZ tools and TRIZ-derived tools. These principles are also restructured by the inspiration of I-Ching. The Behaviour-Entity representation of inventive principles enables the generation of new and innovative solutions based on TRIZ. The TRIZ Contradiction Matrix (CM) and inventive principles are then used to develop the TRIZ-based concept generation approach by adding constraints to the standard Behaviour-Entity representation of TRIZ. This approach is developed to retrieve modified TRIZ inventive principles and to generate new solutions by re-organising the BEC (Behaviour-Entity-Constraint) representation of principles according to the conflicting design requirements. Finally, a negotiation-based approach is integrated with an existing no-compromise approach to develop a knowledge-based system for automatically detecting and resolving conflicts. The recommendation is given as an output arranged by weight to help the designer improve creativity and efficiency for concept generation and conflict resolution in conceptual design. The approach is implemented by using a rule-based language, JESS. A case study of aircraft fuselage layout design is presented to demonstrate the benefits of using this conflict resolution system

Ontological foundations for structural conceptual models

In this thesis, we aim at contributing to the theory of conceptual modeling and ontology representation. Our main objective here is to provide ontological foundations for the most fundamental concepts in conceptual modeling. These foundations comprise a number of ontological theories, which are built on established work on philosophical ontology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of language and linguistics. Together these theories amount to a system of categories and formal relations known as a foundational ontolog

Modelos de conocimiento basados en ontologías para la construcción de software en el dominio de la Ingeniería de control

217 p.El tema abordado en esta tesis es la representación del conocimiento del dominio de la ingeniería de control en las aplicaciones informáticas. En concreto se presenta y estudia el uso de las técnicas de modelado del conocimiento provenientes del campo de la inteligencia artificial como forma de hacer frente a alguna de las necesidades que presenta el software en esta disciplina. Para comprobar la validez de esta aproximación se estudia y lleva a cabo la construcción de una estructura conceptual (una ontología) que recoge el conocimiento existente en un subdominio de esa disciplina, concretamente en el problema de diseño de compensadores de adelanto/retraso con las técnicas del lugar de las raíces. La tesis incluye un estado del arte sobre el software CACE / CACSD y sobre el concepto de ontología y su evolución a partir de los sistemas expertos, dentro del campo de la representación del conocimiento y la ingeniería del conocimient