Asynchronous design is an alternative to the more widely used synchronous design which allows for the elimination of a global clock network and associated design issues such as clock skew. Uncle is a toolflow that provides automated assistance for transforming a synchronous system specified in Verilog RTL to an asynchronous system. With assistance from Uncle an asynchronous delay-insensitive microprocessor is implemented using NULL Convention Logic (NCL) and verified to function properly. An advantage of asynchronous design is that it can be data-driven. Data-driven design allows specific blocks of logic to only be active when they are needed. Data-driven design is implemented to bypass parts of the asynchronous microprocessor. These parts included the ALU and the peripheral hardware multiplier. This resulted in a reduction of total power consumed and an increase in speed. Overall, it was concluded that asynchronous design with Uncle was a viable alternative to synchronous design.

Data Driven Design metodologija plačiai naudojama įvairiose programinėse sistemose. Šios metodologijos tikslas – atskirti bei lygiagretinti programuotojų ir projektuotojų veiklą. Sistemos branduolio funkcionalumas yra įgyvendinamas sąsajomis, o dinamika – scenarijų pagalba. Taip įvedamas abstrakcijos lygmuo, kurio dėka programinis produktas tampa lankstesnis, paprasčiau palaikomas ir tobulinamas, be to šiuos veiksmus galima atlikti lygiagrečiai. Darbo tikslas buvo sukurti automatinį kodo generatorių, kuris transformuotų grafiškai sumodeliuotą scenarijų į programinį kodą. Generuojant programinį kodą automatiškai ženkliai sumažėja sintaksinių bei loginių klaidų tikimybė, viskas priklauso nuo sumodeliuoto scenarijaus. Kodas sugeneruojamas labai greitai ir visiškai nereikalingas programuotojo įsikišimas. Šis tikslas pasiektas iškėlus biznio logikos projektavimą į scenarijaus projektavimą, o kodo generavimo posistemę realizavus žiniatinklio paslaugos principu. Kodas generuojamas neprisirišant prie konkrečios architektūros, technologijos ar taikymo srities panaudojant įskiepių sistemą . Grafiniame scenarijų kūrimo įrankyje sumodeliuojamas scenarijus ir tada transformuojamas į metakalbą , iš kurios ir generuojamas galutinis programinis kodas. Metakalba – tam tikromis taisyklėmis apibrėžta „XML “ kalba. Realizavus eksperimentinę sistemą su didelėmis problemomis nebuvo susidurta. Naujos sistemos modeliavimas projektavimo įrankiu paspartino kūrimo procesą septynis kartus. Tai įrodo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Data Driven Design methodology is widely used in various program systems. This methodology aim is to distinguish and parallel software developer and scenario designer’s work. Core functionality is implemented via interfaces and dynamics via scenario support. This introduces a level of abstraction, which makes software product more flexible easily maintained and improved, in addition these actions can be performed in parallel. The main aim of this work was to create automatic code generator that transforms graphically modeled scenario to software code. Automatically generated software code restricts probability of syntactic and logical errors, all depends on scenario modeling. Code is generated instantly and no need software developer interference. This aim is achieved by moving business logic designing to scenario designing process and code generator service making as a “Web service”. Using cartridge based system code is generated not attached to a specific architecture, technology or application domain. In graphical scenario modeling tool scenario is modeled and transformed to metalanguage, from which software code is generated. Metalanguage – with specific rules defined “XML” language. Experimental system was developed with no major problems. New project modeling with our modeling tool speeded the development process by seven times. This proves modeling tool advantage over manual programming.

Motivation: Today’s sustainability challenges are increasingly being addressed by Product Service Systems to satisfy customers needs while lowering their overall environment impact. These systems are increasingly complex containing diverse artifacts and interactions. To provide a holistic solution centered on the human experience element, design of product-service systems are best driven by data gathered from design thinking methods.     Problem: When considering innovation challenges, such as the deployment of autonomous electric machines on future construction sites, data driven design can suffer from a lack of available tangible user feedback upon which to make design decisions.   Approach: In the case of this study, the development of a scaled down construction site structured around generally applicable operations was built as a prototype for involving various users in early phase development of a HMI for interacting with prototype machines built by Volvo CE called the HX01. Qualitative data acquisition methods were derived from Design Thinking approaches to needfinding including: a questionnaire, unstructured interviews and observations.   Results: The prototype scale site became a 5 meter x 5 meter semi-portable site with 1:11 scale ratio machines including: excavators, wheeled loaders and autonomous haulers. The product tested with the site was an augmented reality interface to provide a communication platform between workers and the autonomous haulers designed at building trust to enable collaboration. Test users and observers provided feedback confirming the effectiveness of the scale site scenario to convey the necessary context of a realistic interaction experience. Beyond HMI testing, the site served as a tangible artifact to instigate conversations across domain boundaries.   Conclusions: The tangible experiential scenario platform developed displayed the capability to go beyond one-way concept communication of concepts to customers, by including customers as integral participants in the testing of new products/services. For design teams, the site can facilitate deeper learnings and validation via a shared contextualization of user feedback. The further implications may also include: the ability to increase rationale at design decision gate’s assessment of risk in new products and enable the identification of emergent issues in complex future scenarios.

Game Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the code in game that makes the computer-controlled opponents (agents) to make smart decisions in game world. There are some AI problems that are essential in games: pathfinding, decision making, generating player’s characteristics, game’s logic management. However these problems are gameplay dependant. The main goal of this study – to generalize AI problems’ solutions for games of many kinds, that is, to make AI solutions gameplay independent. We have achieved this goal by using data-driven design in our solutions. We separated the game logic and the game code levels by using this approach. Such separation gave us an opportunity to manipulate game logic and data freely. We have examined our decision making system and determined that it is flexible and is easy of use.

The development of more complex products has increased dependency on virtual/digital models and emphasized the role of simulations as a means of validation before production. This level of dependency on digital models and simulation togetherwith the customization level and continuous requirement change leads to a large number of iterations in each stage of the product development process. This research, studies such group of products that have multidisciplinary, highly iterative, and simulation-driven design processes. It is shown that these high-level technical products, which are commonly outsourced to suppliers, commonly suffer from a long development lead time. The literature points to several research tracks including design automation and data-driven design with possible support. After studying the advantages and disadvantages of each track, a data-driven approachis chosen and studied through two case studies leading to two supporting tools that are expected to improve the development lead time in associated design processes. Feature extraction in CAD as a way to facilitate metamodeling is proposed as the first solution. This support uses the concept of the medial axis to find highly correlated features that can be used in regression models. As for the second supporting tool, an automated CAD script is used to produce a library of images associated with design variants. Dynamic relaxation is used to label each variant with its finite element solution output. Finally, the library is used to train a convolutions neural network that maps screenshots of CAD as input to finite element field answers as output. Both supporting tools can be used to create real-time prediction models in the early conceptual phases of the product development process to explore design space faster and reduce lead time and cost. / Utvecklingen av mer komplexa produkter har ökat beroendet av virtuella/digitala modeller och ökat betydelsen av simuleringar för att validera en produkt inför produktion. Ett stort beroende av digitala modeller och simulering tillsammans med den individuella anpassningen och kontinuerliga kravförändringar leder till ett stort antal iterationer i varje steg i produktutvecklingsprocessen. Forskningen som presenteras i denna avhandling studerar denna typ av produkter som har multidisciplinära, mycket iterativa och simuleringsdrivna designprocesser. Det har visat sig att dessa tekniska produkter på hög nivå, som vanligtvis tillhandahålls av underleverantörer, vanligtvis har en lång ledtid för utveckling. Litteraturstudien pekar på flera forskningsspår, exempelvis designautomation och datadriven design, eventuellt med stöd. Efter att ha studerat fördelarna och nackdelarna med varje spår, väljs det datadrivna tillvägagångssättet och studeras genom två fallstudier som leder till att två stödjande verktyg tas fram. De förväntas förbättra utvecklingsledtiden i tillhörande designprocesser. Feature extraktion i CAD som ett sätt att underlätta metamodellering föreslås som det första verktyget. Detta stöd använder medial axis för att hitta korrelerade features som kan användas i regressionsmodeller. När det gäller det andra stödjande verktyget används ett automatiserat CAD-skript för att producera ett stort bibliotek med bilder som är associerade olika designvarianter. Dynamisk relaxation används för att märka varje variant med dess finita elementlösning. Slutligen används detta bibliotek för att träna ett konvolutionerande neuralt nätverk som kartlägger skärmdumpar av CAD som indata till finita elementfältsvar som utdata. Båda stödverktygen kan användas för att skapa modeller för förutsägelser i realtid i de tidiga konceptuella faserna av produktutvecklingsprocessen för att utforska designrymden snabbare och minska ledtid och kostnader.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the effects of a designerly approach to data analytics. The research was conducted during the Interaction Design Master program at Malmö University in 2017 and follows a research through design approach where the material driven design process in itself becomes a way to acquire new knowledge. The thesis uses big data as design material for designers to ideate connected products and services in the context of smart city applications. More specifically, it conducts a series of material studies that show the potential of this new perspective to data analytics. As a result of this research a set of designs and exercises are presented and structured into a guide. Furthermore, the results emphasize the need for this type of research and highlights data as a departure material as of special interest for HCI.

Yes / This paper presents a new control strategy for stochastic distribution shape tracking regarding non-Gaussian stochastic non-linear systems. The objective can be summarised as adjusting the probability density function (PDF) of the system output to any given desired distribution. In order to achieve this objective, the system output PDF has first been formulated analytically, which is time-variant. Then, the PDF vectorisation has been implemented to simplify the model description. Using the vector-based representation, the system identification and control design have been performed to achieve the PDF tracking. In practice, the PDF evolution is difficult to implement in real-time, thus a data-driven extension has also been discussed in this paper, where the vector-based model can be obtained using kernel density estimation (KDE) with the real-time data. Furthermore, the stability of the presented control design has been analysed, which is validated by a numerical example. As an extension, the multi-output stochastic systems have also been discussed for joint PDF tracking using the proposed algorithm, and the perspectives of advanced controller have been discussed. The main contribution of this paper is to propose: (1) a new sampling-based PDF transformation to reduce the modelling complexity, (2) a data-driven approach for online implementation without model pre-training, and (3) a feasible framework to integrate the existing control methods. / This paper is partly supported by National Science Foundation of China under Grants (61603262 and 62073226), Liaoning Province Natural Science Joint Foundation in Key Areas (2019- KF-03-08), Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (20180550418), Liaoning BaiQianWan Talents Program, i5 Intelligent Manufacturing Institute Fund of Shenyang Institute of Technology (i5201701), Central Government Guides Local Science and Technology Development Funds of Liaoning Province (2021JH6/10500137).

Tezėse nagrinėjamas hipertekstinės grafinės vartotojo sąsajos aprašymas aukšto abstrakcijos lygmens elementais, juos apibrėžiant deklaratyvia sintakse. Siūloma architektūra aprašo hipertekstinę grafinę vartotojo sąsają aukšto abstrakcijos lygmens elementais. Apibrėžiamas 20-ties esminių grafinių elementų rinkinys, deklaratyvi XML notacija ir suprojektuojama HTML grafinės vartotojo sąsajos biblioteka, veikianti JavaScript pagrindu bei užtikrinanti ženkliai greitesnį ir paprastesnį grafinės vartotojo sąsajos kūrimą. Pateiktas metodas neturi viešų analogų ir yra skirtas sudėtingiems grafinės vartotojo sąsajos sprendimams. Eksperimentiniais tyrimais parodoma, kad deklaratyvi notacija ir aukštas abstrakcijos lygmuo gali sumažinti programinį kodą nuo 3,1 karto trivialiems GUI elementams iki 204,1 karto sudėtingiems GUI sprendimams. Eksperimentai patvirtina, kad didėjant grafinę vartotojo sąsają sudarančių HTML elementų kiekiui, galima tikėtis dar geresnių efektyvumo rodiklių. Sukurta architektūra yra integruota į programinės įrangos projektavimo modelį, kuriame vartotojo sąsajos ir logikos kūrimas iš dalies automatizuotas naudojant UML modelį. Tradicinis tekstinis redaktorius pakeistas duomenimis paremtu projektavimo įrankiu, panaudos atvejai vystomi scenarijais su grafiniu redaktoriumi, duomenų infrastruktūra generuojama iš modelio, o realizacija pateikiama keliomis programavimo technologijomis. / In master theses hypertext graphical user interface definition using high abstraction level declarative syntax is analyzed and architecture model is suggested. Suggested architecture defines graphical user interface using high abstraction level elements. Basic element set of more than 20 elements is defined, declarative XML notation is suggested and graphical user interface library for HTML is developed with JavaScript to ensure much faster and easier standard-based graphical user interface development. Provided method has no public analogues yet and is suggested for complex graphic user interfaces. Experimental studies proved that declarative syntax and high abstraction level can reduce programming language code from 3.1 times on trivial GUI elements to 204.1 times on complex GUI solutions. Studies have showed that when the number of HTML elements composing graphical user interface grows, even better effectiveness can be achieved. Developed architecture is integrated in software development model where graphical user interface and logic are semi-automated using UML model. Traditional text editor is changed by data driven design tool, use-cases are developed using graphical editor, data infrastructure is build from the model and solution is delivered in several programming technologies.

Game engine is a set of supporting tools and services for game development. It is a component designed for reuse in different games. Therefore it is very important for game engine to be designed properly as for any successfully used reusable component. The main objective in this research is to present flexible and easily extensible architectural solution suitable for the game engine, based on the analysis of today’s game engine context and existing software architecture design. During the analysis we reviewed different types of software architecture and its implementation methods, and defined functional requirements for game engine. As the result we have chosen data-driven architecture design as the most suitable for the engine development and created our game engine prototype. For each game engine module we have provided design solution and its implementation approach referring to chosen architecture.

Global challenges such as increasingly competitive markets, low-cost competition, shorter lead time demands, and high quality/value output are transforming the business model of the company to focus beyond the performance requirements. In order to meet these challenges, companies are highly concerned with the customer perceived value, which is to connect the product with the customer in a better way and become more proactive to fulfil the customer needs, via function-oriented business models and Product-Service Systems. In literature, the conceptual phase is distinguished as the most critical phase of the product development process. Many authors have recognized the improvement of design in the conceptual phase as the mean to deliver a successful product in the market. At the decision gate, where concepts are selected for further development, the design team needs knowledge/data about the long-term consequences of their early decision, to see how changes in design propagate to the entire lifecycle of the product. The main goal of the thesis is to describe how the design of Product-Service Systems in the conceptual phase can be improved through the use of a data-driven approach. The latter provides an opportunity to enhance decision making and to provide better support at the early development phase. The study highlights how data are managed and used in current industrial setting and indicates the room for improvement with current practices. The thesis further provides guidelines to efficiently use data into the modelling and simulation activities to increase design knowledge. As a result of this study, a data-driven approach emerged to support the early design decision.  The thesis presents initial descriptive study findings from the empirical investigations, showing a model-based approach that creates awareness about the value of a new design concept, thus acting as a key enabler to use data in design. This will create a link between the product engineering characteristic to the high-level attributes of customer satisfaction and provider’s long-term profitability. The preliminary results indicate that the application of simulation models to frontload the early design stage creates awareness about how performance can lead to value creation, helping multidisciplinary teams to perform quick trade-off and what-if analysis on design configurations. The proposed framework shows how data from various sources are used through a chain of simulations to understand the entire product lifecycle. The proposed approach holds a potential to improve the key performance indicators for Product-Service Systems development: lead time, design quality, cost and most importantly deliver a value-added product to the customer.