Self-Organizing Systems Design Method

Jordan HallMohsin WaqarNathan Young

ME6101 – End of Semester Presentation

7 Dec 2006

Q4S (Modified):

“How should the Pahl & Beitz systematic design method be augmented and personalized to support the concurrent realization of technical systems for a global market place in a distributed environment based on self-organization concepts?”

World of 2020: Vision

Context Driver Metric

Business:Process Costs Time to Market

Supply Chain Profitability

Globalization: Global Consumers Customer Satisfaction

Technology:Web-Based

Collaboration Bandwidth

Computing Power Speed

World of 2020:Requirements List for Design Method

General• Design method must be systematicAugmented • Support multidisciplinary/distributed

design teamPersonalized• Support concurrent engineering practices• Parallel information flow

Plan of Action Our Personalized and Augmented Pahl and Beitz Systematic Design Method

Requirements List(Design specification)

Plan and clarify the task:1) Identify customer desires: ethnographic research, in use studies, etc.

2) Clarify task3) Develop Master Validation Plan

4) Elaborate a requirements list

TaskMarket, Company, Economy

Develop the principal solution:1) Identify essential problems through abstraction

2) Establish function structures3) Search for working principles and working structures

4) Combine and firm up into concept variants5) Perform safety/manufacturing process simulations

Concept(Principal Solution)

Evaluate and specify DfXSubdivide Tasks

Develop and define the construction structure:

Check for errors, disturbing influences, and minimum costs

Prepare the preliminary parts, production, and assembly doc

1)Preliminary form design and calculation

2)Select best preliminary layouts

3)Refine and improve layouts

Eliminate the weak spots

Determine efficiency of integration

Definitive Layout

Prepare production and operating documents:1) Elaborate detail drawings and parts lists

2) Verify and validate3) Complete production, assembly, transport, and operating instructions

4) Check all documents

Product Documentation

Solution

Continuous Improvement/Manufacture

Product Realization

Plan of Action

Communicate with Advisor

Start Develop Common Vision

Conduct Background Research

Clarify Task

Plan Validation

Develop Req. List for Project

Abstract Project

Develop Best Outline A

A

ID Core Ideas

Relate Core Ideas

Develop Rough Draft

Subdivide Tasks

Identify Parallel Info. Flow

Define DfX

Write Section 1

Write Section n

(function structure)

(working structure)

(principal concept)

(layout)

Proof Read and Refine

Verify and Validate

Submit Report

Continue Research

Digest Feedback

.

.

Our Plan: Deliver a comparison between the Pahl & Beitz (P&B) systematic design method and design methods for self-organizing systems.

Conduct On-going Research

Conduct On-going Research

Phase IPhase II

Phase III

Phase IVPhase V

Project Tasks

10/5

Crux of Task

10/7

PEI Diagram

10/21

Requirements List for

Deliverable

10/21

Master Validation

Plan

11/2

Report Outline

11/14

Complete SO Research

11/14

Complete Systematic

DesignResearch

11/19

Rough Draft

11/21

Requirements List for

SOSDM

11/30

Verification &

Validation

12/2

Gap Analysis

12/11

Final Report

Phase I Phase II Phase III Phase IV

Verification and ValidationTheoretical Structural Validation (Square 1):

Is the method internally consistent? YES1) P&B core transforms are retained. 2) Requirements list for project deliverable is satisfied.

Empirical Structural Validation (Square 2)Is our research project appropriate for the method? YES/NO/MAYBE

1) An open-ended problem is posed.2) Team work was required. 3) Time was constrained. 4) Constructs of method are applied.But not all augmentations utilized.

Empirical Performance Validation (Square 3)Did the method contribute to the success of our research project? YES

1) Met our targets for content, quality and time.

Theoretical Performance Validation (Square 4)Is there utility of the method beyond our research project? YES

1) Suitable for technical research papers.

Why Self-Organization?Why SO?

Mohsin: I am interested in machine intelligence. I saw this project as an opportunity to learn more about robust systems that can manage themselves.

Why this Project?

Nathan: I realize that it is critical to always grow as an engineer. I saw this project as an opportunity to diversify my engineering portfolio due to its broad scope and interdisciplinary requirements.

Why systematic design?

Jordan: I am interested in the practical application of a method such as Pahl and Beitz in the future. Self-organization is an interesting challenge for systematic design processes.

How can systematic design be used to create Self-Organizing Systems?

Systematic Design Process

• Information Flow Diagrams

• Top-Down Process

• “Divergent-Convergent”

• Abstract → Concrete

• Based on Requirements

Self-Organization

________________• Efficiency• Robustness• Multi-stability• Distributed Control• Information Flow

Centralized Leadership

Agents

InformationFlowInformation FlowBottleneck

Examples of SO in Practice

__________________• Self-assembly - 2D Arrays - 3D Structures• Multi-agent Robotics - Chain - Lattice - Swarm

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Self-Organizing Systems Design Methodology

A few requirements for SOSDM:

Supports various system architectures.How many elements are there and what is their complexity?

Defines interaction rules between agentsHow much is behavior of an element constrained?

Defines functions/capabilities of each agentAre agents generalists or specialists?

Defines the decision structure (hierarchy vs. autonomous)Who makes decisions?

Define metrics for evaluating macroscopic/global behavior.How do you evaluate the system?

Critical Analysis – The Gap

• Systematic• Information Flow• Requirements List

What are the similarities between SOSDM and P&B?

What are the differences between SOSDM and P&B?

• Function Structure

- How can the nature of a function structure differ between design methods?

• Indirect Design

- What is meant by indirect design and how is that unique to SOSDM?

• Evolution of System in Design

- This is not biology. Why am I talking about evolution?

Future Questions

Can the system function structure be dynamically reconfigured? Can this occur autonomously?

What tasks must occur between manufacturing of the SOS and release to customer to verify system performance?

Is there a way to concurrently design the algorithm and agents for a system? In essence, is the algorithm somewhat generic to SO systems?

What technologies are currently available to develop these types of systems?

What are the core information transforms of a SOSDM?

This is an invitation to think with us as we look to the future of SOS design. Please RSVP…

Lesson Learned…

Jordan:

I gained an understanding of the state of the art in self-organizing systems design. I also gained a deeper understanding of the Pahl and Beitz method by comparing it to self-organization design methodologies.

Nathan:

I gained insight into the fundamental principles of adaptive systems. I discovered the need for an adaptive systems design method that I will continue to investigate in my research.

Mohsin:

I learned that more involvement from mechanical engineers is needed to balance the work of computer scientists and improve the feasibility of self-organizing systems.