Project Needs and Specifications

ARGOS will need to satisfy specific needs in order to accomplish its intended purpose and be desirable to the intended customers. These needs are detailed in the table below. Each requirement is indexed in the leftmost column, described in the middle column, and given and weight in the right column. The weight assigned to each requirement denotes how important the team thought that need was in reference to designing and producing the product. The needs are separated into two categories, software needs and hardware needs. As the names imply, software needs deal with any needs that are based on user interface, or program capabilities. Likewise, hardware needs are based on what the product will be able to physically accomplish.

The needs described in the project needs table are translated into product specifications table below. Each specification is given an index as well as a list of which needs it corresponds to. The specification is then given a criteria descriptor, a measurement unit, and a range of values including a target value that the group aims to achieve for each given criteria. The target values for the criteria were set by the group as specifications that are realistic expectations for the product that account for all the needs to a satisfactory degree.

Concept Screening and Selection Matrices

With all the designs created, the group did an initial concept screening to determine the feasible designs. Utilizing the needs and specifications already determined, the group created a table with 18 different scoring criteria that the final design would need to account for. The group set the Kubi telepresence as a reference and gave it a neutral score for all criteria. Each concept was then given either a positive point or a negative point depending on whether it would perform better or worse than Kubi at that criteria. A net positive score would indicate that the concept would ultimately be better. This initial screen weeds out the concepts that are weak or feature a major flaw. The concepts which moved onto Concept selection were John, Zecca 2, Olliver, Combo 2, and Combo 5.

The goal of the final selection matrix is to determine the final concept that ARGOS 2.1 will use as a basis for its design. The selection matrix utilized all the same criteria as the screening matrix (although some were combined together since they encompassed certain categories). Each criteria was then weighed from 1 to 5, with 5 representing the most important criteria. For example, safety was given a weight of 5 as it is incredibly important while power consumption was given a weight of 1. Similarly, each concept scored between 1 and 5 points for each criteria. The weight and score were multiplied together to produce an effective score for that criteria. The total score was then a sum of these scores.

The group calculated the score for Kubi as well as for ARGOS 2.0 design for last year. This was done to confirm that the concept can perform better than Kubi and improves upon the ARGOS 2.0 design.

Overall, the two best scoring concepts were the wire actuation design, John 1, and the differential motor design, Combo 2. The scores of these two concepts were quite sensitive as changing a single score or weight would place. Ultimately, the group finalized these scores and weights by placing a larger emphasis on the limited budget and the over range of movement. Those criteria generally favored the differential motor concept. Additionally, the group inferred that differential motor systems will be more consistent and reliable which was a major issue for the ARGOS 2.0 team. Thus, ARGOS 2.1 will be designed on the foundation of utilizing a different motor system