Abstract: Conceptual design plays an important role in product life cycle, which requires engineers to use sound design theory, cross-disciplinary knowledge, and complex technical support to acquire design concepts. However, the lack of sufficient computational tools makes it difficult for designers to fully explore in the wide design solution spaces. Therefore, this paper proposes an integrated cognitive computing approach to formalize the cognitive activities of conceptual design. A cognitive computing model composed of concept associative memory, concept generation, and decision-making process is established based on the integration of cognitive psychology and engineering design. First of all, the Hopfield neural network is used to acquire similar concept solutions for specific subfunctions from a knowledge base. Then, morphological matrix and genetic algorithm are introduced to produce a set of feasible candidate solutions in the concept generation process. Furthermore, a technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution is applied to evaluate the generated concept solutions and obtain the optimal solution automatically. Finally, a case study is given to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.

Key words: Conceptual design, Cognitive computing, Genetic algorithm (GA), Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS)

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