Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search
Design-by-analogy is an effective approach to innovative concept generation, but can be elusive at times due to the fact that few methods and tools exist to assist designers in systematically seeking and identifying analogies from general data sources, databases, or repositories, such as patent data...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Society of Mechanical Engineers
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109240 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7776-3423 |
| _version_ | 1826208595971145728 |
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| author | Murphy, Jeremy Otto, Kevin Jensen, Dan Wood, Kristin Fu, Katherine K Yang, Maria C. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Murphy, Jeremy Otto, Kevin Jensen, Dan Wood, Kristin Fu, Katherine K Yang, Maria C. |
| author_sort | Murphy, Jeremy |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Design-by-analogy is an effective approach to innovative concept generation, but can be elusive at times due to the fact that few methods and tools exist to assist designers in systematically seeking and identifying analogies from general data sources, databases, or repositories, such as patent databases. A new method for extracting analogies from data sources has been developed to provide this capability. Building on past research, we utilize a functional vector space model to quantify analogous similarity between a design problem and the data source of potential analogies. We quantitatively evaluate the functional similarity between represented design problems and, in this case, patent descriptions of products. We develop a complete functional vocabulary to map the patent database to applicable functionally critical terms, using document parsing algorithms to reduce text descriptions of the data sources down to the key functions, and applying Zipf’s law on word count order reduction to reduce the words within the documents. The reduction of a document (in this case a patent) into functional analogous words enables the matching to novel ideas that are functionally similar, which can be customized in various ways. This approach thereby provides relevant sources of design-by-analogy inspiration. Although our implementation of the technique focuses on functional descriptions of patents and the mapping of these functions to those of the design problem, resulting in a set of analogies, we believe that this technique is applicable to other analogy data sources as well. As a verification of the approach, an original design problem for an automated window washer illustrates the distance range of analogical solutions that can be extracted, extending from very near-field, literal solutions to far-field cross-domain analogies. Finally, a comparison with a current patent search tool is performed to draw a contrast to the status quo and evaluate the effectiveness of this work. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:08:08Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/109240 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:08:08Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | American Society of Mechanical Engineers |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1092402022-10-01T19:26:21Z Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search Murphy, Jeremy Otto, Kevin Jensen, Dan Wood, Kristin Fu, Katherine K Yang, Maria C. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society Fu, Katherine K Yang, Maria Design-by-analogy is an effective approach to innovative concept generation, but can be elusive at times due to the fact that few methods and tools exist to assist designers in systematically seeking and identifying analogies from general data sources, databases, or repositories, such as patent databases. A new method for extracting analogies from data sources has been developed to provide this capability. Building on past research, we utilize a functional vector space model to quantify analogous similarity between a design problem and the data source of potential analogies. We quantitatively evaluate the functional similarity between represented design problems and, in this case, patent descriptions of products. We develop a complete functional vocabulary to map the patent database to applicable functionally critical terms, using document parsing algorithms to reduce text descriptions of the data sources down to the key functions, and applying Zipf’s law on word count order reduction to reduce the words within the documents. The reduction of a document (in this case a patent) into functional analogous words enables the matching to novel ideas that are functionally similar, which can be customized in various ways. This approach thereby provides relevant sources of design-by-analogy inspiration. Although our implementation of the technique focuses on functional descriptions of patents and the mapping of these functions to those of the design problem, resulting in a set of analogies, we believe that this technique is applicable to other analogy data sources as well. As a verification of the approach, an original design problem for an automated window washer illustrates the distance range of analogical solutions that can be extracted, extending from very near-field, literal solutions to far-field cross-domain analogies. Finally, a comparison with a current patent search tool is performed to draw a contrast to the status quo and evaluate the effectiveness of this work. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant number CMMI-0855510) National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant number CMMI-0855326) National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant number CMMI-0855293) SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC) 2017-05-22T13:32:23Z 2017-05-22T13:32:23Z 2014-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper 978-0-7918-4631-5 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109240 Murphy, Jeremy, Katherine Fu, Kevin Otto, Maria Yang, Dan Jensen, and Kristin Wood. “Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search.” Volume 2A: 40th Design Automation Conference (August 17, 2014). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7776-3423 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/DETC2014-34491 Volume 2A: 40th Design Automation Conference Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Society of Mechanical Engineers American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) |
| spellingShingle | Murphy, Jeremy Otto, Kevin Jensen, Dan Wood, Kristin Fu, Katherine K Yang, Maria C. Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search |
| title | Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search |
| title_full | Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search |
| title_fullStr | Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search |
| title_full_unstemmed | Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search |
| title_short | Facilitating Design-by-Analogy: Development of a Complete Functional Vocabulary and Functional Vector Approach to Analogical Search |
| title_sort | facilitating design by analogy development of a complete functional vocabulary and functional vector approach to analogical search |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109240 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7776-3423 |
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