Two papers were presented this week at the ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE) in Quebec City, Canada.
Toward a Model-based Experimental Approach to Assessing Collective Systems Design Processes
A. Valencia Romero and P.T. Grogan in Design Theory Methodology (DTM)
Abstract: This work presents a conceptual model of collective decision-making processes in engineering systems design to understand the tradeoffs, risks, and dynamics between autonomous but interacting design actors. The proposed approach combines value-driven design, game theory, and simulation experimentation to study how technical and social factors of a design decision-making process facilitate or inhibit collective action. The collective systems design model considers two levels of decision-making: 1) lower-level design value exploration; and 2) upper-level design strategy selection. At the first level, the actors concurrently explore two strategy-specific value spaces with coupled design decision variables. Each collective decision is mapped to an individual scalar measure of preference (design value) that each actor seeks to maximize. At the second level, each of the actor’s design values from the two lower-level design exploration tasks is assigned to one diagonal entry of a normal-form game, with off-diagonal elements calculated in function of the “sucker’s” and “temptation-to-defect” payoffs in a classical strategy game scenario. The model helps generate synthetic design problems with specific strategy dynamics between autonomous actors. Results from a preliminary multi-agent simulation study assess the validity of proposed design spaces and generate hypotheses for subsequent studies using human subjects.
Operational and Strategic Decisions in Engineering Design Games
P.T. Grogan and A.E. Bayrak in Design Automation Conference (DAC)
Abstract: Engineering design games model decision-making activities by incorporating human participants in an entertaining platform. This article distinguishes between design decisions at operational and strategic timescales as important features of engineering design games. Operational decisions consider static and short-term dynamic decisions to establish a player’s situation awareness and initial entertainment. Strategic decisions consider longer-term dynamic decisions subject to large uncertainties to retain player engagement. However, constraints on cognitive load limit the ability to simultaneously address both lower-level operational design decisions and higher-level strategic decisions such as collaboration or sustainability. Partial automation can be introduced to reduce cognitive load for operational decisions and focus additional effort on strategic decisions. To illustrate tradeoffs between operational and strategic decisions, this paper discusses example cases for two existing games: Orbital Federates and EcoRacer. Discussion highlights the role of automation and entertainment in engaging human participants in engineering design games and makes recommendations for design of future engineering design games.