Representing function: Relating functional representation and functional modeling research streams

  • Authors:

  • B. Chandrasekaran

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science and Engineering, 395 Dreese Laboratories, 2015 Neill Avenue, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1277, USA

  • Venue:
  • Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

This paper is an informal description of some recent insights about what a device function is, how it arises in response to needs, and how function arises from the structure of a device and the functions of its components. These results formalize and clarify a set of contending intuitions about function that researchers have had. The paper relates the approaches, results, and goals of this stream of research, called functional representation (FR), with the functional modeling (FM) stream in engineering. Despite the occurrence of the term function in the two streams, often the results and techniques in the two streams appear not to have much to do with each other. I argue that, in fact, the two streams are performing research that is mutually complementary. FR research provides the basic layer for device ontology in a formal framework that helps to clarify the meanings of terms such as function and structure, and also to support representation of device knowledge for automated reasoning. FM research provides another layer in device ontology, by attempting to identify behavior primitives that are applicable to subsets of devices, with the hope that functions can be described in those domains with an economy of terms. This can lead to useful catalogs of functions and devices in specific areas of engineering. With increased attention to formalization, the work in FM can provide domain-specific terms for FR research in knowledge representation and automated reasoning.