{"title":"A Fuzzy Number based Hierarchy Analytic Method and Applications in Design of Rehabilitation Devices","authors":"Bingjie Song, Q. Peng, Jian Zhang, P. Gu","doi":"10.14733/cadconfp.2018.159-163","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Introduction: Conceptual design develops design candidates based on product requirements. Product requirements may be decided from customer needs, benchmarks of competing products, and other criteria. These requirements are then translated into measurable technical attributes that can be used to evaluate design candidates. Criteria must be considered to choose a best design. Designers need to identify corresponding alternatives of product concepts using criteria and their relative importance levels. However, mapping from product requirements into design candidates is a daunting task. There may be a number of feasible design options. As a result, an evaluation model is required for the effective solution selection. Traditional methods of the conceptual design evaluation include the expert rating, gray evaluation, quality function allocation, and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) methods [5]. These methods have some shortcomings, such as the lack of an objective evaluation, complex analysis process, and hard to handle inaccurate information. This research proposes an efficient method for analyzing, prioritizing, and ranking design solutions. A multi-criteria decision-making method is proposed for the evaluation of design solutions to reduce the subjective preference of decision-makers and influence of uncertain factors in the decision-making. The FAHP analyzes factors that affect the competitiveness of products using a hierarchy of the design scheme evaluation. Using triangular fuzzy numbers instead of scales in the conventional analytic hierarchy process, the method can fully consider views of experts in various fields to reduce risks of product development. Three selected rehabilitation products are used as examples to verify feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. An improved design of the exoskeleton device is proposed for the upper extremity exercise rehabilitation.","PeriodicalId":139643,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of CAD'18","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Proceedings of CAD'18","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.14733/cadconfp.2018.159-163","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Introduction: Conceptual design develops design candidates based on product requirements. Product requirements may be decided from customer needs, benchmarks of competing products, and other criteria. These requirements are then translated into measurable technical attributes that can be used to evaluate design candidates. Criteria must be considered to choose a best design. Designers need to identify corresponding alternatives of product concepts using criteria and their relative importance levels. However, mapping from product requirements into design candidates is a daunting task. There may be a number of feasible design options. As a result, an evaluation model is required for the effective solution selection. Traditional methods of the conceptual design evaluation include the expert rating, gray evaluation, quality function allocation, and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) methods [5]. These methods have some shortcomings, such as the lack of an objective evaluation, complex analysis process, and hard to handle inaccurate information. This research proposes an efficient method for analyzing, prioritizing, and ranking design solutions. A multi-criteria decision-making method is proposed for the evaluation of design solutions to reduce the subjective preference of decision-makers and influence of uncertain factors in the decision-making. The FAHP analyzes factors that affect the competitiveness of products using a hierarchy of the design scheme evaluation. Using triangular fuzzy numbers instead of scales in the conventional analytic hierarchy process, the method can fully consider views of experts in various fields to reduce risks of product development. Three selected rehabilitation products are used as examples to verify feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. An improved design of the exoskeleton device is proposed for the upper extremity exercise rehabilitation.