Collaborative Research: Quantifying Creativity in Automated Design through a Multiagent Coordination Framework

该奖项的研究目标是评估特定设计概念的创造性，更具体地说，确定哪些属性导致更多（或更少）的创造性设计概念。为了实现这一目标，本研究使用多智能体协调的信用分配方法来评估各种属性对整个设计概念的创造力的影响。特别是，该研究将提供明确的指导标准应该是什么，以评估在自动化设计环境中产生的设计概念变体的创造性。如果成功的话，这项研究的结果将有助于在设计过程的早期确定最具创意的设计概念。这个奖项的智力价值在于它将最先进的自动概念生成技术与新的代理协调策略相结合，以允许创造力作为属性的组合（例如，代理商）。量化特定属性（局部影响）对概念创造性（全球影响）的影响是一个关键贡献。更广泛的影响包括对工程产品设计的深远影响。如果采用一种方法，在市场推出之前就能普遍抓住设计的创造潜力，就可以彻底改变工业界设计和开发新产品的方式，并为美国工业界提供优势。这项研究将涉及多智能体和工程设计社区。将在每个领域的旗舰会议上举办讲习班。此外，PI将利用NSF资助的工作，创建一个工程虚拟组织，以输入和接收数据来评估概念。此外，在项目结束时，将通过自动化设计竞赛来测试增强和提高学生创造力的方法的影响，以吸引学生。最后，学生在介绍和高级设计课程将从事实验的新方法。

The research objective of this award is to assess how creative a particular design concept is, and, more specifically, to determine what attributes lead to a more (or less) creative design concept. To achieve this objective, the research uses credit assignment approaches derived for multiagent coordination to evaluate the impact of various attributes on the creativity of the full design concept. In particular, the research will provide clear guidance on what the criteria should be to evaluate the creativity of design concept variants generated in an automated design environment. If successful, the results of this research will help identify the most creative design concepts early in the design process. The intellectual merit of this award is in its blending state of the art automated concept generation techniques with new agent coordination strategies to allow the emergence of creativity as a combination of attributes (e.g., agents). Quantifying the impact of specific attributes (local impact) on the creativity of a concept (global impact) is a key contribution. The broader impact includes far-reaching effects on engineering product design. A method that generally captures the creative potential of a design, a-priori to market introduction, could revolutionize how industry designs and develops new products, and provide an advantage to United States industry. This research will engage both the multiagent and engineering design communities. Workshops will be held at the flagship conferences in each field. In addition, the PIs will leverage an NSF funded effort that created an Engineering Virtual Organization to both enter and receive data to assess concepts. Furthermore, the impact of methods that enhance and bring forward the creativity of students will be tested through an automated design competition at the end of the project to engage the students. Finally, students in the introductory and senior design courses will be engaged to experiment with the new method.