Self-Organizing Systems Design Method Jordan Hall Mohsin Waqar Nathan 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 ContextDriverMetric 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 systematic Augmented Support multidisciplinary/distributed design team Personalized 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 task 3)Develop Master Validation Plan 4) Elaborate a requirements list Task Market, Company, Economy Develop the principal solution: 1) Identify essential problems through abstraction 2) Establish function structures 3) Search for working principles and working structures 4) Combine and firm up into concept variants 5)Perform safety/manufacturing process simulations Concept (Principal Solution) Evaluate and specify DfX Subdivide 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 integrationDefinitive Layout Prepare production and operating documents: 1) Elaborate detail drawings and parts lists 2)Verify and validate 3)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 Phase I Phase II Phase III Phase IV Phase 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 Design Research 11/19 Rough Draft 11/21 Requirements List for SOSDM 11/30 Verification & Validation 12/2 Gap Analysis 12/11 Final Report Phase IPhase IIPhase IIIPhase IV

Verification and Validation Theoretical Structural Validation (Square 1): Is the method internally consistent? YES 1) 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 Information Flow Information Flow Bottleneck

Examples of SO in Practice __________________ Self-assembly - 2D Arrays - 3D Structures Multi-agent Robotics - Chain - Lattice - Swarm

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 agents How much is behavior of an element constrained?  Defines functions/capabilities of each agent Are 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.