Imprecision in Engineering Design
Manuscript prepared for submission to the 1995 ASME Journal of Mechanical Design
Erik K. Antonsson
Engineering Design Research Laboratory
Division of Engineering and Applied Science
California Institute of Technology
Kevin N. Otto
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Methods for incorporating imprecision in
engineering design decision-making are briefly reviewed and compared.
A tutorial is presented on the Method of Imprecision (MoI),
a formal method,
based on the mathematics of fuzzy sets,
for representing and manipulating
imprecision in engineering design.
The results of a design cost estimation example,
utilizing a new informal cost specification, are presented.
The MoI
can provide formal information upon which
to base decisions during preliminary
engineering design
and can facilitate set-based concurrent design.