Design tool

About: Design tool is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3864 publications have been published within this topic receiving 46401 citations.

Digital Simulations for Improving Education: Learning Through Artificial Teaching Environments

Abstract: Game-based learning and simulation is a powerful mode of learning, used by industries as diverse as aviation and health sciences. While there are many generic Virtual Learning Environments available to further education and higher education in the United Kingdom, there is no widely available open-source Web-based simulation environment for professional learning. The SIMPLE (SIMulated Professional Learning Environment) project has designed, created, implemented and is in the process of evaluating such an environment in a range of disciplinary settings. The simulations that are being created place both undergraduates and postgraduates in a professional context where their work is, as it will be in the workplace, distributed between tools, colleagues, resources, anticipated, and unanticipated problems. One of the key tools that staff will use to create simulations is the “narrative event diagram”, a design tool as well as a means by which the narrative of the simulation is constructed. This chapter will describe the tool, its design history and context, its current use, and next design iteration. In particular it will show the interdisciplinary genesis of the tool’s design, arising from the confluence of computer science, information science, and narrative theory, and its power in designing professional educational simulations.

OpenMETA: A Model- and Component-Based Design Tool Chain for Cyber-Physical Systems

Abstract: Model- and component-based design have yielded dramatic increase in design productivity in several narrowly focused homogeneous domains, such as signal processing, control and aspects of electronic design. However, significant impact on the design and manufacturing of complex cyber-physical systems (CPS) such as vehicles has not yet been achieved. This paper describes challenges of and solution approaches to building a comprehensive design tool suite for complex CPS. The primary driver for the OpenMETA tool chain was to push the boundaries of the “correct-by-construction” principle to decrease significantly the costly design-build-test-redesign cycles in design flows. In the discussions we will focus on the impact of heterogeneity in modeling CPS. This challenge is compounded by the need for rapidly evolving the design flow by changing/updating the selection of modeling languages, analysis and verification tools and synthesis methods. Based on our experience with the development of OpenMETA and with the evaluation of its performance in a complex CPS design challenge we argue that the current vertically integrated, discipline-specific tool chains for CPS design need to be complemented with horizontal integration layers that support model integration, tool integration and design process integration. This paper will examine the OpenMETA technical approach to construct the new integration layers, provides and overview of the technical framework we established for their implementation and summarize our experience with their application.

Integrated life-cycle analysis

Abstract: Although assessment models exist for evaluating buildings after they are designed, the problem is creating an appropriate tool for the design team to use during the design process to create sustainable (green) buildings. An integrated, life-cycle-oriented design tool (LEGOE) is proposed and its general criteria identified for use in practice including the scope of methods as well as their scalability over the manufacture, construction, use, cleaning, maintenance, refurbishment and recycling/waste cycles of the building and its components. The design tool is compared with assessment tools for green buildings. The integration of basic methods of life-cycle analysis (LCA), in particular energy and massflow analysis, into the normal practice environment (CAAD, specification and quantity surveying, energy need and building physics calculation, comfort and health risk appreciation) is considered. Feedback from the initial practical applications of the integrated tool is discussed. Conclusions concern the time-s...