Design tool reveals a product’s many possible performance tradeoffs
MIT researchers have developed a tool that makes it much easier and more efficient to explore the many compromises that come with designing new products. Designing any product — from complex car parts down to workaday objects such as wrenches and lamp stands — is a balancing act with conflicting performance tradeoffs. Making something lightweight, for instance, may compromise its durability. To navigate these tradeoffs, engineers use computer-aided design (CAD) programs to iteratively modify design parameters — say, height, length, and radius of a product — and simulate the results for performance objectives to meet specific needs, such as weight, balance, and durability. But these programs require users to modify designs and simulate the results for only one performance objective at a time. As products usually must meet multiple, conflicting performance objectives, this process becomes very time-consuming. In a paper presented at this week’s SIGGRAPH conference, researchers from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence...