SBIR Phase I: An Ergosemantic Analogy Problem Solving Platform

这个SBIR第一阶段项目建议开发一个新的软件平台，用于进行类比搜索以加强创新。这项技术是基于这样的观察，即高达90%的新创新实际上是对现有解决方案的改编。目前，负责创新新产品的工程师通常依赖于基本的头脑风暴工具和碰运气策略。这使得创新更像是艺术而不是科学。类比查找器就是为解决这个问题而设计的。它基于正在申请专利的语义搜索技术，该技术可以找到高度相关的专利，这些专利包含对未解决问题的适应性想法。这项技术最初是在麻省大学国家科学基金会的资助下开发的，使工程师和科学家能够超越关键字搜索，进行类似的搜索，以确定其他学科的相关技术和解决方案。拟议的第一阶段项目将加强类似搜索结果的相关性，同时制定一套衡量改进的基准指标。该项目的目标是实现两种对搜索结果进行分组的方法和一种根据语义唯一性度量对搜索结果进行排序的方法，并完成对美国专利数据库中所有数字化专利的索引。积极参与和投资于其研发过程以增加创新的公司将看到这项技术的更广泛/商业影响。明显受益于这项技术的行业包括汽车、电子、航空航天、国防、能源、基础设施和化工，这些行业严重依赖工程设计。这项新技术满足了该行业独特而关键的需求。根据麦肯锡2007年的一项研究，70%的企业领导人表示，创新是推动增长的三大优先事项之一，这表明我们的技术面临着绝佳的机遇。但正如博世会计师事务所2012年的报告中所概述的那样，没有几家公司完善了创新流程。根据这项调查，46%的受访者表示，他们的公司在产生商业上可行的想法方面只是略微有效或一般，几乎没有成功的创新，而没有一个既定的流程，并以有纪律的方式遵循。在创新艺术中加入科学，将极大地增加对无数工程问题的新的、创新的解决方案的发现。当一家公司能够更准确地预测解决问题所需的时间时，这将使他们能够节省时间，更快地创新，并加快新产品和创新产品的上市时间。

This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a novel software platform for conducting analogous search to enhance innovation. The technology is based on the observation that as much as 90% of new innovations are really adaptations of existing solutions. Currently, engineers responsible for innovating new products generally rely on basic brainstorming tools and a hit or miss strategy. This makes innovation more art than science. Analogy Finder is designed to address this problem. It is based on patent pending semantic search technology that locates highly relevant patents containing adaptable ideas for unsolved problems. The technology, originally developed under NSF funding at the University of Massachusetts, enables engineers and scientists to move beyond keyword search and instead conduct analogous search to identify relevant technologies and solutions from other disciplines. The proposed phase I project will enhance the relevancy of analogous search results, while developing a suite of benchmark metrics to measure improvement. The objectives of the project are to implement two ways to group search results and one way to order search results by a semantic uniqueness metric, and to complete the indexing of all digitized patents of the U.S. Patent database.The broader/commercial impact of this technology will be seen by companies that are actively engaging in and investing in their R&D process to increase innovation. Obvious industries benefiting from the technology include automotive, electronics, aerospace, defense, energy, infrastructure and chemical where they rely heavily on engineering design. The new technology fulfills a distinct and crucial need for the industry. According to a 2007 McKinsey study, 70% of Corporate Leaders say innovation is among their top three priorities for driving growth, indicating a prime opportunity for our technology. But as outlined in the Booze & Allen 2012 report, few companies have perfected the innovation process. According to the survey, 46% of respondents said their companies are only marginally effective or average at generating commercially viable ideas and few succeed at innovation without having an established process that is followed in a disciplined fashion. Adding science to the art of innovation will greatly increase the discovery of new, innovative solutions for a myriad of engineering problems. When a company can more accurately predict the time needed to solve a problem it will allow them to save time, innovate faster and speed the time to market for new and innovative products.